The U.S. markets regulators are melding their operations in the places where the duties of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) overlap, and building a crypto oversight framework is listed among the core aims of a written agreement released on Wednesday.
Most of the objectives of the memorandum of understanding in combining supervision, product approvals and policy interpretations, plus coordinating enforcement actions and providing dual registration, will effect the regulated majority of the crypto sector. But the agreement also specifically listed "Providing a fit-for-purpose regulatory framework for crypto assets and other emerging technologies," as a top goal.
SEC Chairman Paul Atkins had previewed the MOU in Tuesday remarks, detailing how the agencies are offering contact information for regulated firms to call combined meetings to discuss policy matters and product applications.
"For decades, regulatory turf wars, duplicative agency registrations, and different sets of regulations between the SEC and CFTC have stifled innovation and pushed market participants to other jurisdictions,” Atkins said in a statement on Wednesday. "By aligning regulatory definitions, coordinating oversight, and facilitating seamless, secure data sharing between agencies, we will ensure our rules and regulations deliver the clarity market participants deserve."
The new agreement says the staff of the CFTC and SEC will meet regularly and share data on mutual interests. That includes enforcement actions, which have historically been pursued independently, sometimes leaving a crypto firm confronted with similar accusations by both agencies. If the two regulators overlap in an enforcement case, they're agreeing to "confer on potential charges and relief, sequencing of filings, litigation strategy and public communications."
During the previous administration, other crypto positions of the two agencies sometimes directly contradicted each other, including in how certain assets were being placed in which bucket: securities or commodities.
Now, their enthusiasm for friendly crypto rules is mutual and essentially unopposed, with the CFTC run by a sole Republican chairman on an otherwise empty five-member commission and the SEC led by Atkins and two other Republicans, with the Democrat seats kept vacant.
The chairmen of the agencies were both appointed by President Donald Trump, who arrived in office last year with a new-found enthusiasm for crypto, stemming in part from his own growing business interests. Both Atkins and CFTC Chairman Mike Selig had worked for crypto clients prior to taking their jobs.
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BitGo’s move creates further competition in a burgeoning European crypto market that is expected to generate $26 billion revenue this year, according to one estimate. BitGo, a digital asset infrastructure company with more than $100 billion in assets under custody, has received an extension of its license from Germany’s Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin), enabling it to offer crypto services to European investors. The company said its local subsidiary, BitGo Europe, can now provide custody, staking, transfer, and trading services. Institutional clients will also have access to an over-the-counter (OTC) trading desk and multiple liquidity venues.The extension builds on BitGo’s previous Markets-in-Crypto-Assets (MiCA) license, also issued by BaFIN, and adds trading to the existing custody, transfer and staking services. BitGo acquired its initial MiCA license in May 2025, which allowed it to offer certain services to traditional institutions and crypto native companies in the European Union.Read more
