Morning Minute: Selig Says ‘It’s Go Time’ for CFTC Crypto Rules

Morning Minute is a daily newsletter written by Tyler Warner. The analysis and opinions expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Decrypt. And check out our daily news show ‘FOMO HOUR’ covering all of the top stories and market action.

GM!

Today’s top news:

Crypto majors fall 3% alongside broader markets; BTC at $83.4k
BTC ETF inflows stay positive with $347M in net inflows, $2B+ in 3 days
CFTC’s Selig says “It’s Go Time” for crypto rules, focused on perps
Trump admin weighs plans to push USD-backed stablecoins overseas
Variational announces TGE details including 32% airdrop and 100% burn

⚖️ Selig Says ‘It’s Go Time’ for CFTC Crypto Rules

Eight days after the Senate blocked the Clarity Act, CFTC Chair Mike Selig went on CNBC and said the agency is writing crypto market structure rules anyway. His phrase was “it’s go time.” He argued the CFTC’s existing statutory authority gives it room to act without Congress.

The week that followed the failed vote has been the busiest stretch of US crypto policy in years, and none of it required a bill.

Atkins and Selig both said within 24 hours that they would proceed. Since then:

The SEC approved a five-year Innovation Exemption letting tokenized US stocks trade on public blockchains without exchange registration, effective immediately
The SEC held a roundtable on 24-hour trading with NYSE, Nasdaq and DTCC in the room
The CFTC issued a no-action letter letting wallet apps route users to regulated derivatives without registering as brokers
The SEC sent a crypto custody proposal to OMB, and
The CFTC filed two prerules with the White House, Regulation Crypto Asset Transactions and Regulation Crypto Asset Markets, under RIN 3038-AF80

Selig’s framing goes further than crypto. He said the agency has to reevaluate all its rules for a transition to 24/7 onchain markets driven by algorithms and agentic finance. That’s the CFTC saying it expects to regulate markets where software, not people, does the trading.

What actually changes here? The CFTC can build a designated contract market category letting exchanges offer leveraged crypto trading under its oversight. It cannot claim jurisdiction over the spot market, which was the entire point of Clarity and still requires legislation.

So perps it is. This is a huge headline for the perps leaders and their integration into the US. Hyperliquid and Lighter are the clear winners (LIT hit an ATH at $5.40 yesterday and HYPE is within 1-2% of ATH). It appears they will have the full green light—it’s just a matter of time. Expect to see a slew of announcements out of these two as the CFTC pushes forward.

🌎 Macro Crypto and Markets

Crypto majors are red down 2-3%; BTC -3% at $83.4k; ETH -3% at $2,650; SOL -3% at $113; HYPE -5% at $91; ZEC -10% at $1,485
Top alt movers include LTC (+7%), Stable (+5%) and MORPHO (+4%)
Oil +2% at $93; Gold -0.7% at $4,290
Stock futures fall as yields hit new multi-year highs; DOW -0.3%, Nasdaq -0.9%
The Trump administration is weighing an initiative to push dollar stablecoins overseas, potentially through joint ventures with private firms, to defend the dollar’s reserve status and boost Treasury demand
Trump’s accounts bought up to $115,000 of Strategy stock in July across two purchases plus Coinbase shares, while selling MARA and CleanSpark, per an Office of Government Ethics filing released Tuesday
NYSE signed an MOU with Blockchain.com to distribute tokenized US stocks and ETFs through its planned digital ATS, reaching more than 44 million accounts across 70-plus jurisdictions, pending regulatory approval
MoonPay agreed to buy North Capital for more than $60 million in stock, acquiring SEC broker-dealer, transfer agent, trading, and advisory registrations to build tokenized real-world asset infrastructure
Kalshi denied being under CFTC investigation after the WSJ reported the agency was examining its ether perp trading, with a spokesperson saying the patterns are typical of liquidity incentive programs
About $15.9 billion in Bitcoin options settle Friday alongside ether’s quarterly expiry, with positioning skewed toward calls, and max pain at $75,000, well below spot near $85,500
Coinbase launched fixed-rate Bitcoin-backed loans in the first enterprise-scale deployment of Morpho Midnight, letting users lock the rate and maturity on USDC borrowed against BTC, alongside a variable-rate book above $1.4 billion

Corporate Treasuries & ETFs

Meme Coin Tracker

Meme leaders were red down 5-10%; DOGE -7%, SHIB -8%, PEPE -12%, PENGU -11%, TRUMP -11%, SPX -14%, BONK -14%
Robinhood chain leaders were red down 10-20%; Pons -12% to $420M; AI -15% at $225M; Cashcat -11% at $146M; Prism +28%, Strategy +40% and IMDSTR +70x led top movers
Solana top movers were led by Mask +14x, SI +50%, GP +66% and Grok +70%; Ansem -12% to $150M

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

🚚 What is happening in NFTs?

NFT leaders were mostly flat after their recent leg up; Punks even at 34 ETH, BAYC +1% at 6.89 ETH, Pudgy even at 3.51 ETH
Identity MD (+14%) and OCH Ringbearer (+20%) led top movers; Credits +5% to 0.031