The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced they will jointly operate Project Crypto, marking a significant shift toward regulatory coordination following years of uncertainty about which agency had authority over digital assets. While they are hoping for the passage of legislation, they plan to provide greater clarity in the interim.
Speaking at the CFTC headquarters on 29 January, the agencies outlined plans for coordination, shared market surveillance, and a comprehensive memorandum of understanding that would formalize operational processes between the two regulators. The chairs committed to at least weekly discussions and said their staffs would work together on joint rulemakings.
“Many of our registrants have to dually register and then are subject to really different standards across agencies,” said CFTC Chair Michael Selig, adding that the agency “cannot force our market participants to have to deal with inefficient regulations and rules and things like that.”
The agencies plan to explore substituted compliance arrangements, where one regulator accepts the other’s compliance framework so a firm with dual registration does not have to provide two separate sets of reports or meet two different standards. The agencies will also share market data and surveillance capabilities.
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