CFTC Innovation Council Adds Prediction Markets & Crypto Exchange CEOs

The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission has added a host of blockchain industry executives alongside counterparts from traditional finance as part of the agency’s new CEO Innovation Council. 

According to an announcement on Wednesday, the CEO Innovation Council will discuss market structure developments relating to the derivatives markets overseen by the CFTC. 

The discussion topics will primarily be about “tokenization, crypto assets, 24/7 trading, perpetual contracts, prediction markets and blockchain market infrastructure.” 

The list of participants includes the bosses of crypto exchanges and prediction markets such as Polymarket, Kalshi, Kraken, Gemini, Bitnomial, Crypto.com and Bullish.  

Alongside the crypto CEOs, the counterparts from traditional finance come from major exchanges such as CME Group, Cboe Global Markets, Nasdaq, Intercontinental Exchange and the London Stock Exchange Group. 

Related: Crypto among sectors ‘debanked’ by 9 major banks: US regulator

“We are building on the success of the CFTC Crypto CEO Forum and the SEC-CFTC Joint Roundtable with our CFTC CEO Innovation Council, specifically focused on market structure developments in derivatives markets,” said acting CFTC Chairman Caroline Pham. 

CFTC working to improve derivative market infrastructure and regulation 

The latest move by the CFTC comes just a few days after acting chairman Pham announced a crypto collateral derivatives market pilot program. 

The pilot will enable CFTC-registered futures commission merchants to accept Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH) and Circle’s stablecoin USDC for margin collateral, as the CFTC tests out the integration of crypto in regulated markets.