CFTC主席谈Clarity法案与加密市场监管

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James Braid is uh expanding his sur horizons to the private sector. He's getting set to depart the White House in September. According to President Trump, James Braid, of course, is the White House director of legislative affairs. And the president credited him in his post announcing his departure on True Social with many of the big accomplishments Congress has made during Trump's second term, including the One Big Beautiful Bill, beating the Democrats into shutdown showdowns, the president says, and passing the Genius Act, as well as a number of other things.

The Genius Act, of course, was the stable coin legislation that did get across the finish line. It was part one of what Congress wants to accomplish when it comes uh to crypto lawmaking. Part two is the Clarity Act, which may have to find its way through the United States Senate without the help uh of James Braid, unless someone is quickly uh put in his place to try to get it across the finish line. The Clarity Act, of course, is the market structure legislation divying up which digital assets should be regulated by which regulatory agency, the C SEC or the CFTC.

It gives a lot of jurisdiction to the CFTC, which today is holding its inaugural innovation advisory committee meeting. It kicked off yesterday at the White House. The president actually greeted not just the CFTC chair and SEC chair uh but heads of the major uh exchanges as well as the big crypto companies got them all together and called on Congress to pass the Clarity Act. And we'll see whether or not that happens after recess.

The question, of course, if it doesn't is where it leaves things. If there's no firm rules of the road written into the law when it comes uh to crypto, is it all just up to the regulators? That's where Bloomberg's Tyler Kendall began her conversation with the CFTC chair, Michael Celg, and they got into a number uh of other subjects as well. Let's listen to their conversation in full.

We're very optimistic that we're going to get clear rules of the road for crypto asset market structure on the books and this vote is critical. We've got to get the Democrats to come along with us. They have really obstructed. We want their support. This should be bipartisan. The bill passed the House in a bipartisan fashion. We've got this bill in the Senate. It's very similar. We want to get it across the line. It needs to be a fair bill, a bill that isn't targeting the president or anybody else.

It should be neutral and apply to everybody in the same way. Uh we're really excited to get this bill across the line. CFTC stands ready to implement upon the passage of the bill.

Just to quickly follow up on that, was there any discussion yesterday about any updated ethics provisions related to the bill?

Well, the ethics pro provision is under negotiation. and we're looking forward to seeing a fair ethics provision that's not targeting the president or anybody else. As I said,

if clarity stalls or fails to pass, the CFTC has signaled that it's prepared to unilaterally dial up oversight. What would that look like? What sort of rulemaking are you prepared to take in that scenario?

The CFTC has a lot of authority and we're not afraid to use that authority. The president has promised market structure for the crypto industry and that's what we're going to do whether we have a bill or not. But we're optimistic the bill is going to set the standard. We really want the United States to lead and having legislation clear law on the books is the most surefire way to lock in crypto market structure. And so that's what we're focused on today.

But for my clarity, if clarity doesn't pass, you're still going to pursue regulation related to this.

Well, absolutely. It's really important that we have market structure. We can do that through rules. We can do that through laws. The CFTC has a lot of authority under its existing statutes as do other agencies and if we have to utilize that authority to create rules without uh the the supporting legislation, we'll do it. But of course, legislation's the priority. That's what we want to see. America needs clear rules on the books.

We'll use rules if we have to, but we're going to focus on the law today,

right? Because uh in theory, the or not in theory, in reality, the Clarity Act is there to codify this into law. So, I'm just wondering how you're thinking about the future here to ensure that if there's a Democratic CFTC under a different administration, it wouldn't unwind all the work that you'd be doing.

We're of course going to look to the bipartisan efforts on the Hill no matter what. If we have legislation, we'll implement that legislation. If we don't have legislation, we'll of course utilize that existing work that's been developed on the hill and utilize our existing authorities and do what we can to set rules of the road for crypto. But the bill is really the priority. The bill has to get passed.

Last question on this, just to try to get a little bit more information. Is there a timeline that you're looking at where you would act? Are you already preparing any of this action or does it have to happen once we see ultimately the fate of that bill?

I've asked the staff to explore and evaluate potential rulemakings utilizing our existing authority, but we're focused on the bill today. Until we get that across the line, until we have an answer on on where the bill is going, we're not going to propose any new rules.

Okay, fair enough. I have to ask you about the other side of this remitt as well, of course, prediction markets. This might be the first election where the public at large seems hyper aware of prediction markets. How are you thinking about policing against insider trading when it comes to political event contracts? And in particular, should we expect the CFTC to release any specific guidance ahead of the midterms?

Absolutely. We're utilizing all of our authorities to police these markets. They are derivatives markets within our exclusive jurisdiction. We take that responsibility very seriously. There's two things that we're looking for. One is insider trading as you mentioned. The other is just fraud and manipulation. We saw a number of cases, some of them have become public, others we're still investigating where there's just fraud, right? somebody makes a statement and then takes a position on the other side.

That of course is not legal within our framework. But there's also insider trading where people are misappropriating non-public material information that they obtain whether it's from their employer, from their client, whatever, right? They take that information and they trade on it. That's insider trading. It's no different if it's a security, a commodities contract, or an event contract. And so we take that responsibility very seriously.

But any firm guidance from your agency ahead of election day?

We've put out a number of uh advisories and reports and and that sort of thing. We've settled a handful of actions. We'll continue to do so. In terms of our enforcement advisories, you believe that the rules are very clear. Our statute is very clear. There isn't really any needed guidance necessarily on insider trading or manipulation. We may put out further advisories, but we're focused on building the the policy side, the rulem, and then policing these through actual investigations and bringing actions against bad actors.

Just as you did bring up investigations, very quickly, can I ask you uh related to news of the day, the markets are watching any sort of update when it comes to the conflict in Iran? Can you give us any update on your investigation into those suspiciously timed trades linked to the war?

I can't talk to any investigations. I I appreciate the the effort there, but but no, I can't speak to that.

All right, let's think broadly about legal strategy and the CFTC