CFTC Chairman Michael Selig told the agency's Innovation Advisory Committee that staff should begin preparing crypto market-structure rules under the Commodity Futures Trading Commission's existing authority if Congress does not finish the CLARITY Act.

The remarks, delivered at the committee's inaugural Washington meeting, keep congressional legislation as Selig's preferred route. He said passing CLARITY would be the most important step for future-proofing the industry and urged participants to continue engaging with lawmakers. But he also said the CFTC would move if the bill continues to stall.

Selig said he had directed CFTC staff to explore rules that would codify a market structure for crypto assets using current agency powers. One option he described would let current registrants and non-registrant crypto exchanges be designated as a form of designated contract market for crypto assets, with leveraged or margined trading subject to CFTC oversight and purpose-built rules.

He also said staff should engage with developers of onchain finance protocols on ways to offer protocols legally and compliantly in the United States. That makes the comments broader than an exchange-registration plan: they also point toward possible treatment of DeFi builders inside a CFTC-led framework.

The House Financial Services Committee said in May that the House had passed CLARITY with 216 Republicans and 78 Democrats, while Senate committees continued work on market-structure legislation. Selig's remarks do not create rules by themselves, but they signal that the CFTC is preparing a fallback path if Congress cannot complete the bill.