DeFi & NFT
By Steven Anderson
1 / 15
Phantom Got There First, Now Others Can Follow. Phantom Technologies had already won a similar carve-out back in March.
2 / 15
CLARITY Act Stalls, Agencies Press On Anyway. The timing matters. The CLARITY Act, which would have given the industry a legislative framework…
3 / 15
The CFTC moved Thursday to ease a real pain point for crypto wallet developers. The agency's Market Participants Division said it won't recommend enforcement against qualifying…
4 / 15
That's a pretty big deal for anyone building a crypto wallet or app that touches perpetual contracts, prediction markets, or similar products.
5 / 15
Phantom Technologies had already won a similar carve-out back in March. The CFTC let Phantom's self-custodial wallet software connect users to registered futures brokers without…
6 / 15
Phantom and the Hyperliquid Policy Center had been pushing hard for exactly this kind of expansion.
7 / 15
The key distinction the CFTC seems to be drawing here is custody. If your software doesn't hold users' funds, and you're not making calls on how those funds get deployed, you're…
8 / 15
The timing matters. The CLARITY Act, which would have given the industry a legislative framework to work from, failed to advance in the Senate.
9 / 15
See also: Digital Asset Tax Certainty Act Advances, Promises Relief for Crypto Users
10 / 15
But CFTC Chair Michael Selig and SEC Chair Paul Atkins have both said they'll keep pushing crypto regulation forward using the authorities they already have.
11 / 15
And the SEC moved the same day. The commission granted a temporary exemption for platforms that want to facilitate limited onchain trading of tokenized US stocks, specifically…
12 / 15
The SEC's move on tokenized stocks is its own story. Letting platforms trade tokenized versions of US equities through onchain mechanisms — even on a temporary, limited basis —…
13 / 15
For crypto wallet developers, the CFTC's no-action position probably removes a genuine obstacle.
14 / 15
Read also: SEC and CFTC Shift to Aggressive Rulemaking After CLARITY Acts Senate Defeat
15 / 15
The risk, of course, is that "passive" is doing a lot of work in this framework. The CFTC's conditions are real constraints.
The Currency Analytics
Want the full story?