CFTC forms 35-member advisory panel stacked with crypto leaders as regulator signals shift toward friendlier digital asset rules.

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has selected several cryptocurrency executives to serve on its newly created Innovation Advisory Committee (IAC).

This development comes as the agency, led by Chair Michael S. Selig, continues to indicate that his administration plans to adopt a more permissive approach to regulating the digital asset industry.

IAC Appointee List Announced

Of the 35 members making up the panel, 20 are tied to companies involved in crypto, while at least five are involved in prediction markets. Among them are Crypto.com CEO Kris Marszalek, Gemini co-founder Tyler Winklevoss, Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour, and Polymarket architect Shayne Coplan.

“Today marks an important and energizing moment at the CFTC as the Innovation Advisory Committee takes shape,” said Selig in a Thursday press release.

Additional members include Anchorage Digital’s top executive, Nathan McCauley, Grayscale’s Peter Mintzberg, Robinhood CEO Vladimir Tenev, Solana’s Anatoly Yakovenko, as well as Ripple chief Brad Garlinghouse, and Coinbase’s Brian Armstrong.

Executives at Paradigm, DraftKings, and the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) were also included, together with representatives from traditional finance institutions such as Cboe, CME, Nasdaq, and the Options Clearing Corporation (OCC), among other firms.

Selig said the main aim is to ensure America remains the home to the most transparent and well-regulated financial markets in the world.

 “By bringing together participants from every corner of the marketplace, the IAC will be a major asset for the Commission as we work to modernize our rules and regulations for the innovations of today and tomorrow,” he added.

Market Innovation and Crypto Regulation Streamlining

The IAC, launched in January, replaces the Technology Advisory Committee (TAC), which previously provided guidance on how emerging technologies were affecting derivatives markets.

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The new body will serve as a resource on developments in derivatives and commodity markets, helping the Commission assess how innovations such as artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain are reshaping financial systems and informing the development of adaptive regulatory frameworks.

The CFTC has also begun coordinating with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) through a joint initiative known as “Project Crypto.”

The effort is aimed at harmonizing regulatory approaches to digital asset markets, reducing jurisdictional overlap between the agencies, and providing clearer and more predictable rules for cryptocurrency companies operating in America.

LIT, the native token of decentralized perpetuals exchange Lighter, rose as much as 13% over the past 24 hours as the platform rolled out new trading features, including unified collateral accounts.

The token traded as high as $1.62, but has since retraced to $1.59, up just over 11% on the day, according to CoinGecko. However, LIT is still down around 50% from its launch price of above $3.

The price action follows a series of product updates from Lighter this week. On Thursday evening, the DEX launched new trading account types that let users switch to a unified collateral system for spot and perpetual futures trading.

The company explained in a post on X that this is the first phase in a set of upgrades aimed at allowing “arbitrary tokens” to be used as collateral on the platform. Lighter also added that the next step is the tokenization of LLP, the platform’s market-making vault.

Lighter currently has $925.8 million in total value locked (TVL) and ranks fourth among perpetual DEXs by daily trading volume, according to DeFiLlama. The platform has also accumulated more than 801,000 users and processed over 59 billion transactions, according to its explorer.

Earlier this week, Lighter also announced new markets, including Korean equity perpetual futures. The platform now offers contracts linked to Hyundai, Samsung, SK Hynix, and the Korean Composite index, with up to 10x leverage, according to a post on X.

The upgrades come as perpetual futures trading continues to heat up across decentralized finance (DeFi), with exchanges racing to capture market share. Competitors like Hyperliquid and Aster remain the largest players, with $5.1 billion and $1.86 billion in open interest (OI), according to DeFiLlama. As of Friday, Lighter’s OI stands at $782 million.

The current impasse over stablecoin yields in the U.S. Senate’s crypto market structure bill is now in writing, and the crypto side is holding the line on needing some forms of rewards for stablecoin users.

A White House meeting between Wall Street bankers and crypto executives hit a wall this week, despite officials in President Donald Trump’s administration urging the sides to find a compromise. The banks held their line that no stablecoin yield or reward is acceptable, arguing that such yields threaten the depository activity at the heart of the U.S. banking system, explaining their position in a one-page paper entitled “Yield and Interest Prohibition Principles.”

The Digital Chamber has now penned its own set of principles and began circulating it on Friday, defending the need for the section in the Senate Banking Committee’s draft bill that outlines a range of situations in which rewards could be acceptable. The latest document, obtained by CoinDesk, also says that the bankers’ request for a two-year study on stablecoins’ effect on deposits is acceptable, as long as it doesn’t come with an automatic regulatory rulemaking in response.

“We want to make the case known for policymakers that we do think this is a compromise,” said Digital Chamber CEO Cody Carbone, in an interview on Friday. With this document, the industry group is putting in writing that it’s willing to give up ground on anything that looks like an interest payment for static holdings of stablecoins, which would most closely resemble a bank savings account.

While the crypto sector has been pursuing stablecoin products allowed under last year’s Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act, the bankers are trying to dial back that law with edits included in this pending Digital Asset Market Clarity Act. But the GENIUS Act represents the current law of the land, so Carbone suggested that his industry’s willingness to scrap rewards on stablecoin holdings is a significant concession, and the crypto companies should still be able to offer rewards when customers engage in transactions and other activity. Bankers should return to the table to talk again, he said.

“if they don’t negotiate, then the status quo is that just rewards continue as-is,” said Carbone, who suggested that his group’s wide membership — which includes banking members — can put it closer to the middle of the discussion. “If they do nothing and they continue to say, ‘We just want a blanket prohibition,’ this goes nowhere.”

He hopes the Digital Chamber’s new position paper can reset the negotiations that have halted progress on the legislation since an 11th-hour disagreement derailed a hearing on the bill in the banking panel a month ago.

“Hopefully we can be the voice or the middle man who helps drive this conversation once again, because we are the one trade that represents both sides,” Carbone said.

The Digital Chamber’s principles on Friday highlighted two particular reward scenarios it wanted protected – those tied to providing liquidity and those fostering ecosystem participation. The group argued those two provisions of the draft bill’s Section 404 are especially important in decentralized finance (DeFi).

The White House is said to have called for a compromise by the end of this month. So far, the bank side hasn’t seemed to budge in repeated meetings, though Trump crypto adviser Patrick Witt said in a Friday interview with Yahoo Finance that another gathering may be scheduled for next week.

“We’re working hard to address the issues that were raised,” Witt told Yahoo Finance, saying he’s encouraged both sides to bend on the details.

“It’s unfortunate that this has become such a big issue,” he said, because the Clarity Act isn’t really about stablecoins, which was more appropriately the business of the already-passed GENIUS Act. “Let’s use a scalpel here to address this narrow issue of idle yield,” he added.

The Senate Agriculture Committee has already passed its own version of the Clarity Act, which focused on the commodities side of the ledger, while the Senate Banking Committee’s version is more about securities. If the banking panel follows its agriculture counterparts, it’ll advance the bill along partisan lines. But if a final bill is to eventually be approved in the entire Senate, it’ll need a lot of Democratic support to clear the chamber’s 60-vote margin.

Bitcoin (BTC) rallied to $69,482 on Friday, and the rally coincided with data showing steady accumulation from smaller-sized holders in February.

Analysts say the breakout may evolve into a broader bullish trend, although other data suggest that a longer period of price consolidation will underlie the emerging bull trend.

Key takeaways:

• BTC broke above the $69,000 resistance and its descending channel, triggering $92 million in short liquidations within four hours.

• Small wallets added $613 million in February, while the whale wallets stalled with $4.5B billion in outflows.

• Short-term holder profit-ratio indicator hit its lowest level since November 2022, underscoring weak sentiment over the past few weeks. 

Will the Bitcoin relief rally last?

Bitcoin has pushed above the upper boundary of its descending channel and retested $69,000. The move marks a potential bullish break of structure (BOS), if BTC holds above $68,000.

If BTC holds above this reclaimed level, the next internal liquidity zones sit near $71,500 and $74,000. The 50 and 100-period exponential moving averages (EMAs) are now compressing beneath the price on the one-hour chart, reinforcing the possibility of the short-term momentum continuing.

The latest price surge triggered roughly $96 million in futures liquidations over the past four hours, with nearly $92 million coming from short positions, signaling a short squeeze on bearish traders.

BTC liquidations were primarily concentrated on Bybit (22.5%), Hyperliquid (22%), and Gate (15%), suggesting these platforms account for a significant share of active leveraged positioning in the market.

Related: Multi-day negative Bitcoin funding signals ‘overcrowded’ short trade: Reversal coming?

BTC retail investor demand backs the breakout

The breakout is supported by the steady buying from the smaller-sized investors. Order flow data from Hyblock shows that the small wallets ($0–$10,000) have accumulated roughly $613 million in cumulative volume delta (CVD) in February, consistently bidding during the price correction.

The mid-sized wallets ($10,000–$100,000) remain around -$216 million for the month, but the cohort added roughly $300 million since BTC fell below $60,000, suggesting selective accumulation during discounted periods.

Whale wallets ($100,000 and above) saw their CVD bottom near -$5.8 billion earlier in February and have since moved sideways. This stabilization implies that the aggressive distribution has paused, though a clear accumulation trend from the large holders has yet to emerge.

For the rally to continue, whale buying may need to return, and the short-term holder spent output profit ratio (SOPR) may need to move back above 1, signaling that the recent buyers are no longer selling at a loss.

Notably, the short-term holder SOPR recently fell to its lowest level since November 2022, indicating that many recent buyers have been realizing losses, a sign that conviction may remain fragile despite the rebound.

Related: Bitcoin passes $69K on slower US CPI print, but Fed rate-cut odds stay low