U.S. market regulators are laying out a clearer near‑term roadmap for digital assets. At the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA) Annual Meeting on October 21, 2025, Acting Chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Caroline Pham said she expects at least one Designated Contract Market (DCM) to debut live, listed spot digital-asset trading before year‑end, effectively moving spot activity under the CFTC’s exchange framework (Caroline D. Pham, Acting Chair, CFTC, Remarks at the SIFMA Annual Meeting (Oct. 21, 2025)). She described the agency’s work as a “crypto sprint,” anchored to recommendations from the White House and the President’s Working Group on Digital Asset Markets (id.).
Pham also previewed the market plumbing to make this workable. She said the CFTC plans year‑end guidance on tokenized collateral, with implications for over-the-counter trading activity, and indicated that some derivatives clearing organizations could begin accepting stablecoins as collateral in early 2026, contingent on technical amendments to support tokenization and blockchain‑based infrastructure (id.). Despite delays from the federal shutdown, she pointed to an August 2026 finish line for those amendments, which would complete the CFTC’s President’s Working Group task list (id.).
Running in parallel, SEC Chair Paul Atkins signaled a proposal to modernize Regulation National Market System and transfer agent rules so intermediaries can facilitate digital-asset trading (Paul S. Atkins, Remarks at the SIFMA Annual Meeting (Oct. 21, 2025)). He framed the project as overdue market‑structure reform aimed at reducing fragmentation and rent‑seeking (id.).
On Capitol Hill, House Financial Services Committee Chair French Hill cautioned that even with a market‑structure bill, agencies will still need at least a year of coordinated rulemaking across custody, secondary trading, reporting, and compliance (French Hill, Chair, H. Fin. Servs. Comm., Remarks at the SIFMA Annual Meeting (Oct. 21, 2025)).
Bottom line: if these timelines hold, expect regulated spot listings on DCMs, clearer collateral frameworks, and tighter coordination across the securities‑commodities boundary (see Pham Remarks; Atkins Remarks; Hill Remarks). Firms should prepare for joint oversight, refreshed clearing practices, and new data and venue obligations (see id.).
