U.S. CFTC’s Pham Moves for Do-Over on ‘Actual Delivery’ Guidance on Crypto

U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission Acting Chairman Caroline Pham has moved again to advance President Donald Trump’s crypto agenda by eliminating old guidance on “actual delivery” of crypto commodities that she suggested might get in the way of the next steps.

“Eliminating outdated and overly complex guidance that penalizes the crypto industry and stifles innovation is exactly what the administration has set out to do this year,” said Pham in a Thursday statement.

The guidance, established in 2020 during Trump’s first term, had sought to define “actual delivery” of assets during a crypto commodity transaction — a key concept under the Commodity Exchange Act. Law firm Steptoe had sought formal guidance from the CFTC defining the term as it applied to digital assets as far back as 2016. But the President’s Working Group report on the administration’s digital assets agenda earlier this year recommended that the CFTC should “consider expanding upon prior guidance on ‘actual delivery’ of virtual assets.”

The CFTC needed to cut the original document “in order to reevaluate such guidance in light of further developments during the past 5 years in the means and methods deployed in the spot market for the purchase and sale of virtual currencies,” it noted in the withdrawal notice.

Pham has driven a rapid series of crypto policy moves at the agency in the past couple of weeks, even as Trump’s nominee to permanently replace her, Mike Selig, is heading toward a potential confirmation as soon as next week.

Read More: The CFTC Just Defined What ‘Actual Delivery’ of Crypto Should Look Like