SEC and CFTC launch Project Crypto to harmonize federal oversight of digital-asset markets

SEC Chairman Paul Atkins and newly sworn CFTC Chairman Michael Selig on Monday announced "Project Crypto," a joint initiative intended to align the Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission on regulatory standards for crypto-asset markets.

"Project Crypto will now proceed as a joint initiative between our two agencies," Atkins said, adding that coordination can "reduce uncertainty, lower the costs of compliance, and unleash the creative energies of a free people." He introduced Selig and framed the partnership as complementary to market-structure legislation moving through Congress.

Selig said the CFTC will work closely with the SEC on a shared token taxonomy and other harmonized guidance. "I've directed commission staff to work together with SEC staff to consider joint codification of this framework as an interim measure while Congress finalizes legislation," he said. Selig argued most crypto trading today is not securities trading and said the agencies should draw a "bright jurisdictional line" to provide market participants with clarity.

Both chairs described coordination as "coordination, not consolidation." They said the agencies will pursue joint and complementary rulemakings, share market surveillance and data, and look for opportunities to reduce duplicative registrations and overlapping compliance obligations. Atkins emphasized that legislation would be helpful but said agency action is necessary in the interim to provide predictable regulatory space for innovators.

Selig also described outreach structures: the CFTC has converted an earlier CEO innovation council into a Federal Advisory Committee (FACA) innovation advisory committee, which he said will include major exchange and digital-asset CEOs and will inform staff rule design. "We need these firms to have a seat at the table to really tell us what they're witnessing in their business," he said.

The chairs tied Project Crypto to a broader agenda Selig outlined for the CFTC, including work on tokenized collateral, onshoring of novel derivatives such as perpetual contracts, and clarified standards for concentrated retail leverage trading. Selig said the CFTC will pursue coordinated interpretations of statutory definitions with the SEC to reduce the number of innovations that fall into uncertain "no-man's land" between the agencies.

Next steps the chairs described include staff-level cooperation, a planned memorandum of understanding to formalize operational coordination, and interagency drafting of targeted rule text. Both chairs said Congress's work on market-structure legislation remains important to lock in durable statutory definitions but that agencies will act within existing authority where appropriate.

The agencies did not announce final rule text or regulatory deadlines at the event; both chairs said staff would begin drafting and soliciting stakeholder input. Atkins said the SEC continues to work on an "innovation exemption" but did not give a precise publication date, saying the commission had solicited comments and seeks clear, time-limited authorities for pilot activity.

The event concluded with a moderated discussion in which the chairs reiterated harmonization goals and said staff collaboration and joint rulemakings are central to sustaining the initiative beyond current leadership.