CFTC Files Crypto Market Rulemaking With White House at Prerule Stage

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission sent a crypto market structure rulemaking to the White House on Thursday, two days after the Senate refused to take up the bill that would have written one into law.

It is the only CFTC action pending White House review. Chairman Michael Selig said in August that the agency would use its existing authorities if the CLARITY Act stalled, and repeated it the day after the Senate vote.

The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs entry lists the action under RIN 3038-AF80, titled "Regulation Crypto Asset Transactions and Regulation Crypto Asset Markets," received Sept. 17. The entry records no legal deadline, marks the action as not economically significant, and flags it as a Dodd-Frank Act rulemaking.

The entry carries no abstract and no text. The CFTC has not published the draft, and the RIN has not appeared in a Unified Agenda.

Prerule, Not A Proposal

OIRA classifies the filing at the "Prerule" stage. Executive Order 12866 uses that category for "notices of inquiry, advance notices of proposed rulemaking, and other preliminary regulatory actions prior to a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking." It gives them a different clock. OIRA is to finish reviewing a preliminary action within 10 working days of submission, against 90 calendar days for proposed and final rules.