CFTC & SEC Vow to End Regulatory ‘Turf War’ & Collaborate on Clarity

The SEC and CFTC held their first joint roundtable in over a decade to discuss regulatory harmonization.

The focus was on digital assets and crypto policy.

Now SEC Chair Paul Atkins opened the roundtable by stressing collaboration, not consolidation, making clear there is no plan to merge the SEC and CFTC, a decision he said. be up to Congress and the president.

Now the SEC also asked ETFs for crypto, including Litecoin, XRP Solana, and Doge to withdraw their 19B4 filings.

The SEC says its recent approval of generic listing standards makes those filings unnecessary.

This could make Spotty TF approval of all coins a much faster process.

Take a listen.

Our two agencies must work in lockstep to transform dual regulation from a source of confusion into a source of strength.

Together we can offer the best of both worlds.

The investor protections that have defined US markets combined with the innovation friendly approach that will keep us at the frontier of financial technology throughout the 21st century.

Joining me here at the New York Stock Exchange this morning is Chris.

Smith, president of the Solana Policy Institute.

Good morning, Kristen.

Thank you so much for joining me.

Great to be here in person, Remy.

Well, here we are, the final day of September and Q3, and that means we only have one more quarter left for 2025.

And a lot has changed on the regulatory landscape, and we've seen a lot of progress when it comes to US digital assets.

So first and foremost, I do want to get your take on the SEC's approval of generic listing standards and how do you think this will affect.

Well, I think that you have to remember in the past for a crypto asset to get an ETF, it was a very long and drawn out process, which is why we've only seen Bitcoin, which had to be litigated in court, by the way, to get the approval needed, and then Ethereum.

But what we've seen now is just last week the SEC issued these generic listing standards.

So if certain conditions are met like having a futures product listed for 6 months or something like that, then the exchanges can automatically.

List those without having to get further approval from the SEC.

So as a result, there are a lot of discussions happening right now, and we expect ETFs to be live sometime in the next couple of weeks.

I think they're very close and trying to work out some issues around staking, etc. but I think this is a really big moment because there are a lot of investors that want to get exposure to assets like Solana because they believe it is going to be the part of the financial system going forward and in order to do so they have to.

To look elsewhere, but this is a way for them to get easy access within the regulated securities environment that they're used to.

So we're very excited about this.

And Kristen, we know that digital asset treasuries have been making headlines this year.

So when it comes to what does this mean when it comes to institutional portfolios are really interesting.

So the DAs are different than the ETFs, these digital asset treasuries, and what they are is a publicly traded.

Publicly traded permanent capital vehicle and so the goal of these DAs is to acquire as much salon as possible.

But instead of just waiting to see if the price of the underlying token goes up, goes up, they also participate in staking and securing the network, and many of them operate validators and deploy these assets into D5.

So it is a much more sort of aggressive strategy than what is allowed within an ETF.

They simply buy the asset.

That and and we'll do staking with it.

It's a different type of strategy for a different type of investors.

So I think all of these pieces are really important.

I think we want investors to have as many options as possible for getting exposure to Solana, and I really give credit to this SEC for not trying to step in the way of this type of advancement and giving investors the option to make the decisions that are best for them and their strategy.

Yeah, and Kristen, you just mentioned.

SEC.

So of course I do have to get your take on the SEC CFTC roundtable that concluded in the nation's capital yesterday.

What were the key takeaways for you?

Yeah, well, I mean, number one, it's a huge deal that this has happened.

The SEC and the CFTC haven't had this kind of joint meeting since the implementation of Dodd-Frank almost 15 years ago.

So this is a significant development, and I, in my time working on these issues, this is by hands down the most cooperation we've seen.

I think the challenges these are.

Two different agencies that have two different governing statutes, so anything they can do to harmonize these regulations and make it easier for those who are participating in both worlds to do it more seamlessly, I think is a really good, it's good for business, it's good for investors, and ultimately good for cryptotech technology, which we think is going to be a big part of our financial services system going forward.

And Kristen, finally, before I let you go, there are a lot of expectations when it comes to The regulatory landscape for digital assets, and there's concern about innovation being stunted.

So what do you think is necessary as we head into the final months of this year and beyond?

Yeah, I mean, listen, we've come a long way.

I think with President Trump coming into office and David Sachs at the White House, we've undone a lot of the damage that happened in previous years.

We stopped the litigation, we stopped the deaning.

This is this is great progress.

We saw the passage of the Genius Act that you and I have spoken about before, but I I think what's really exciting is Project Crypto.

This is the SEC's effort to update its rules for cryptotech technology is well underway.

And just yesterday we saw a no action letter that was issued the first time the SEC has issued a no action letter in over 5 years.

So getting these types of, you know, guidance or relief on these very specific issues are really important for laying the groundwork.

And so we're excited thank you so much for joining me as always and thank you so much for your perspective.

Yeah.