The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has plans for a series of public roundtables over the coming year assessing various financial services topics.
Announced by the newly appointed Acting Chair of the CFTC, Caroline Pham, the panels will cover affiliated entities and conflicts of interest, prediction markets, and digital assets.
Pham, who was appointed to the role by President Donald Trump shortly after his inauguration last week, stated that the panels are part of a CFTC drive for ‘open public engagement and increased transparency’.
“As I have long said, the CFTC must take a forward-looking approach to shifts in market structure to ensure our markets remain vibrant and resilient while protecting all participants,” Pham said.
“Innovation and new technology has created a renaissance in markets that presents new opportunities that are accessible to more people, as well as risks. The CFTC will get back to basics by hosting staff roundtables that will develop a robust administrative record with studies, data, expert reports, and public input.
“A holistic approach to evolving market trends will help to establish clear rules of the road and safeguards that will promote US economic growth and American competitiveness.”
The latter two topics mentioned by the CFTC – prediction markets and digital assets – could be set to be two of the most defining areas of financial services on the regulator’s agenda this year.
In the case of digital assets, cryptocurrency is high on the political agenda for the Trump administration. The CFTC could play a significant role in this with pre-election and pre-inaugration discourse suggesting that Trump wanted the regulator to take on more of a role.
He has also just last week tasked a new cross-agency working group with examining how a regulatory framework on cryptocurrency could be established and function. The CFTC would likely play a key role in overseeing such a framework.
This seems to have been recognised by Pham. Following her appointment, the Acing Chair filled a number of other senior positions, with Harry Jung becoming Acting Chief of Staff, with responsibility for leading the CFTC’s handlings on crypto, DeFi and other digital assets.
Meanwhile, prediction markets became a major talking point in the aftermath of Trump’s November election win after many individuals were able to make significant gains by predicting his victory on markets like Polygon.
Other major examples like Robinhood and most notably Kalshi offer prediction markets in the form of ‘political event contracts’, while Crypto.com offers a sporting counterpart, ‘sport event contracts’.
Kalshi and Crypto.com have both found themselves at loggerheads with the CFTC over these products. The former has been involved in extensive discourse with the regulator while the latter was asked to pause its sports event contracts shortly after product launch.
The public panels on these topics could offer stakeholders the chance to provide input on how the regulations governing their markets and products unfold under the CFTC’s new leadership and under a new administration in Washington.
The CFTC states that it will engage with industry leaders, market participants and other ‘market structure experts’ and public interest groups over the coming months. It hopes to gain the ‘best information and latest data’ from these interactions.