Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Mike Selig told CoinDesk that the agency will continue to defend its “exclusive regulatory authority” to oversee prediction markets in court. “It doesn’t matter if it’s on sports, politics or anything else, if it’s a validly offered product within a CFTC-regulated exchange, then we regulate that,” Selig said.

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NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The Commodity Futures Trading Commission is just defending its territory in suing states over prediction markets, the regulator’s head told CoinDesk.

CFTC Chairman Mike Selig, speaking on the sidelines of the Digital Assets and Emerging Tech Policy Summit hosted by Vanderbilt University and the Blockchain Association on Monday, said the agency’s lawsuits against Arizona, Illinois and Connecticut make it “very clear … that the CFTC has exclusive regulatory authority when it comes to commodity derivatives markets.”

Selig, who is speaking at CoinDesk’s Consensus Miami conference next month, said Monday’s Third Circuit Court ruling that the CFTC has to oversee prediction markets bolstered his agency’s view.

Under Selig, the CFTC has embarked on a major litigation effort to bolster prediction markets’ arguments that they are providing derivatives products under the Commodity Exchange Act, rather than gambling services regulated by states.

“Our view is that the statute is very clear that when you offer a swap on a federally regulated Designated Contract Market, that transaction, those trades, are subject to federal regulation,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if it’s on sports, politics or anything else; if it’s a validly offered product within a CFTC-regulated exchange, then we regulate that, and the states don’t have the ability to nullify federal oversight and substitute gambling laws where derivatives laws apply.”

Asked why the CFTC did not sue Nevada or Massachusetts — two states that have successfully secured preliminary injunctions against prediction market providers — Selig said that “I wouldn’t say, just because these are the first states, that they’ll be the last.”

He pointed out that the CFTC filed an amicus brief in a consolidated case before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which will be heard next week. The Ninth Circuit includes Nevada.

Dodd-Frank swaps

Under the Dodd-Frank Act, the CFTC can regulate swaps and can block certain types based on whether they are in the public interest. These categories include war, terrorism, assassination, gaming, anything otherwise illegal or “other similar activity.”

Selig said the main issue is that, under the law, the CFTC decides whether a product is contrary to the public interest. The lawsuits it’s engaged in are focused on that aspect — regardless of the events underlying the contracts.

“Even if those categories of underlyings, whether it’s war terrorism, assassination, gaming, and so on and so forth, even if we have to do a public interest analysis, or we choose to do a public interest analysis, that doesn’t mean that that’s not within our exclusive regulatory authority,” he said. “And so that’s what the cases are about, and that’s what we’re fighting for.”

The CFTC is currently going through the formal rulemaking process to clarify its oversight of prediction markets.

“We’re open to suggestions as to what that process should look like and how to evaluate it,” he said. “We’re certainly considering that provision of the Dodd-Frank Act.”

Interpretative guidance

Outside prediction markets, Selig said the CFTC would review any comments on the final interpretation it published with the Securities and Exchange Commission last month.

“To the extent we get feedback on certain things we might change or need to reconsider, we’ll certainly do that,” he said.

More importantly, he said, the creation of a taxonomy means if any company wants to self-certify a futures product tied to a digital asset, the CFTC and SEC can just look to their guidance to ensure the token is not a security.

“To the extent you have a tokenized security, we’re not butting heads on the CFTC claiming it’s a commodity or the SEC claiming a different type of commodity as a security,” he said. “We’ve got clear lines drawn in the statute.”

The guidance was intended to be comprehensive, so both the companies and the agencies had examples, he said.

“We should be very much aligned across agencies,” he said.

Monday

• 13:00 UTC (9:00 a.m. ET) SEC Chair Paul Atkins will speak at the IMF-IOSCO conference on new technologies.

Thursday

• 14:00 UTC (10:00 a.m. ET) The House Agriculture Committee will hold a hearing with CFTC Chair Mike Selig. There are not many details about the topic of the hearing — it just said it’s “for the purpose of receiving testimony.”
• 16:00 UTC (9:00 a.m. PT) A Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals panel will hear arguments in a consolidated set of cases around prediction markets and state regulators. The CFTC filed an amicus brief in this case and will also speak during the arguments.

If you’ve got thoughts or questions on what I should discuss next week or any other feedback you’d like to share, feel free to email me at nik@coindesk.com or find me on Bluesky @nikhileshde.bsky.social.

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See ya’ll next week!