The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission has unveiled two proposed rules aimed at crypto activity involving leverage, margin or financing, adding its own framework to a wider federal push that also includes the Securities and Exchange Commission. The package would introduce a new class of regulated venues called crypto asset markets, or CAMs, and set standards for the transactions they handle.

The proposal is designed to address gaps left by Congress’s failure to pass a broader crypto law. But it stops short of creating a full federal regime for ordinary spot trading, leaving direct crypto purchases and sales outside the new structure except where the CFTC’s existing authority over fraud and market manipulation applies.

Two rules, one new market category

The CFTC’s plan is built around Regulation CTX, covering crypto asset transactions, and Regulation CAM, covering the venues that would list or facilitate those trades. Together, the rules would establish a national framework for crypto transactions that are leveraged, margined or otherwise financed.

A central feature is the creation of crypto asset markets as a distinct type of platform. The agency also outlined a narrower form of registered venue modeled on designated contract markets, the structure already used in other parts of U.S. derivatives regulation. The idea is to give exchanges handling more complex crypto products a defined federal route to registration and supervision.

What the proposal would and would not cover

The CFTC said the rules would apply both to the covered transactions and to the platforms that host them. That means the proposal focuses on trading arrangements where leverage or financing changes the nature of the product and raises risks that the agency believes warrant a uniform federal approach.

At the same time, the framework would not extend to spot markets in the broad sense of direct crypto trading without leverage. For those markets, the gap in comprehensive federal oversight would remain. The CFTC would continue to police fraud and manipulation, but the proposal does not turn ordinary spot trading into a fully regulated federal market structure.

Compliance standards for exchanges and intermediaries

Under the proposed regime, exchanges operating in the covered segment of the crypto market would need to adopt anti-manipulation controls. They would also face reserves-verification requirements when holding customer assets, a measure meant to set baseline protections around custody and platform integrity.

The CFTC also envisions futures commission merchants as intermediaries in the framework. In that role, they would be used to support anti-money-laundering checks, adding a traditional compliance layer to crypto trading that falls within the new rules.

Actual delivery carve-out and the next step

One important exception in the proposal is an “actual delivery” exemption for certain transactions completed in less than 28 days. That carve-out would preserve a route for some trades to fall outside the main leveraged-trading framework if they meet the delivery condition set by the agency.

The rulemaking is part of a broader effort by U.S. regulators to define crypto oversight without new legislation from Congress. For now, the key confirmed step is the CFTC’s release of the proposals themselves, which outline how federally supervised crypto venues could operate for leveraged and financed trading while leaving the broader spot-market question unresolved.

Source: www.coindesk.com