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The following opinion editorial was written by Alex Forehand and Michael Handelsman for Kelman.Law.
CFTC Outlines How Present Regulations Cover Digital Assets
In her remarks before the UK All-Party Parliamentary Group on Blockchain Technology on September 8, 2025, acting CFTC Chairman Caroline D. Pham covered everything from broad principles to targeted. Framing the urgency that followed the President’s Working Group’s foundational report, Pham underscored a strategy of leveraging existing statutes and frameworks, stressing that regulators should not have to “reinvent the wheel.”
The first concrete initiative is the CFTC’s Crypto Sprint, which aims to accelerate regulatory clarity by engaging market participants directly. Public consultations have already launched—addressing listed spot crypto trading and broader recommendations from the President’s Working Group, with comment deadlines set for October 20, 2025. This rapid outreach reflects Commissioner Pham’s stance that simplicity and timeliness can’t wait years, especially in a fast-evolving digital-asset ecosystem.
Complementing this, the CFTC and SEC issued a joint staff statement affirming that current U.S. law does not bar registered exchanges—whether under SEC or CFTC—to facilitate trading of certain spot crypto products. In essence, digital assets can now be brought “inside our existing regulatory perimeter,” benefiting from decades of built-in market integrity and investor protections.
The primary measure Pham revealed, however, is the intention to lean on cross-border regulatory frameworks that already exist. By utilizing mechanisms such as substituted compliance, mutual recognition, and passporting—which have been in place since the Dodd-Frank era—the CFTC can onshore non-U.S. digital-asset trading venues efficiently.
This is followed by a recent CFTC advisory reaffirming longstanding registration and recognition frameworks for foreign boards of trade (FBOTs)—structures rooted in 1990s policy—now extended with clarity and applicability to digital-asset markets. Commissioner Pham highlighted that this approach avoids delay and fragmentation, while importing on-shore liquidity and discipline swiftly into U.S. markets.
Pham pointed to the European Union’s MiCA framework and other cross-border regulatory regimes as examples of how existing international standards can be harnessed rather than duplicated. She noted that MiCA and related EU rules already provide a comprehensive baseline for oversight of digital-asset markets, and emphasized that U.S. regulators should look to mechanisms like substituted compliance and mutual recognition to align with those frameworks.
By referencing MiCA, Pham underscored that the U.S. does not need to “reinvent the wheel” when trusted regulatory models are already being implemented abroad. Instead, she suggested that leveraging those regimes could allow the U.S. to import proven safeguards quickly, harmonize cross-border supervision, and avoid the risks of regulatory arbitrage while preserving room for domestic innovation.
Old Frameworks v. New Technology
This strategy raises an essential question: should regulators adapt existing tools for digital assets, or does novel technology demand new regulation?
On the one hand, using a fragmented approach with technology-neutral tools might overlook the systemic vulnerabilities unique to blockchain technology and digital assets, such as immutable smart contracts. It might also fail to capture the custodial distinctions between centralized intermediaries and decentralized arrangements, particularly the complexities of multi-signature wallets and the risks and responsibilities inherent in self-custody.
On the other hand, the existing frameworks relied upon are largely the cross-border regimes, such as substituted compliance and mutual recognition, that import digital-asset specific regulations from other jurisdictions. In effect, this means that rather than applying purely technology-neutral rules, the United States is already adopting digital asset-specific frameworks developed abroad, such as MiCA.
This cross-pollination ensures that the unique features of blockchain technology—immutability, decentralized custody, and the absence of traditional intermediaries—are not overlooked, while still allowing the U.S. to benefit from tested regulatory models. Utilizing known statutes and enforcement machinery allows regulators to act quickly, which Pham frames as necessary to avoid the U.S. ceding innovation to other jurisdictions.
Yet, this direction should not be read as a rejection of future regulation. Rather, it’s a two-stage strategy: first, corral digital assets within known frameworks; second, monitor, learn, and refine—potentially by crafting targeted tools to address gaps that only become visible through real-world application.
Notably, the SEC and CFTC have announced plans to host a joint roundtable in late September, which will likely focus on potential legislative reforms and targeted exemptions—signaling that even as existing frameworks are applied, regulators are preparing to tailor new rules to the realities of digital assets. The idea that this is only a temporary fix is further reinforced by the public consultations already launched from the President’s Working Group, with comment deadlines set for October 20, 2025.
Pham’s address to the U.K.’s All-Party Parliamentary Group on Blockchain Technologies—spanning the Crypto Sprint, joint regulatory clarity with SEC, leveraging FBOT regimes, and cross-border coordination—demonstrates a deliberate emphasis on using what we already have to bring pace and certainty to digital-asset markets. Her refrain that regulators should not “reinvent the wheel” encapsulates this ethos with a phrase we can all understand.
It’s clear this path offers immediate benefits: preserving investor protections and legal clarity while avoiding unnecessary delays. However, counsel and market participants should remain vigilant. As digital-asset ecosystems evolve—from programmable finance to decentralized governance—the regulatory architecture must be ready to evolve in kind.
Kelman PLLC continues to monitor developments in crypto regulation across jurisdictions and is available to advise clients navigating these evolving legal landscapes. For more information or to schedule a consultation, please contact us here.
This article originally appeared at Kelman.law.