Agency proposes new crypto rules

The U.S. commodities regulator proposed on Monday a new federal framework for cryptocurrency exchanges that offer leveraged digital asset trading, seeking to bring parts of the spot crypto market under federal oversight weeks after Congress failed to advance comprehensive crypto regulation.

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission's proposed rules would effectively allow U.S. crypto exchanges to opt into a federal regulatory framework instead of relying primarily on a patchwork of state money-transmitter licenses, the agency said.

The proposed rules make use of a specific authority the CFTC has to oversee margined or leveraged spot assets. The CFTC has long sought authority to regulate spot cryptocurrency markets -- which currently operate in a regulatory grey area -- but only Congress has the ability to provide the regulator with that purview.

"For years, entrepreneurs building on the new frontier of finance faced uncertainty about whether there was a place for them in our markets. We are giving them an answer," said CFTC Chairman Michael Selig in a speech on Monday at an event in New York held by Fordham University's law school.