CFTC Expands Crypto, Prediction-Market Rulemaking as FY 2025 Actions Fall 78%

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission is advancing rulemaking for retail crypto transactions and prediction markets as its fiscal 2025 enforcement actions fell 78% from the previous year.

The CFTC recorded 13 enforcement actions in fiscal 2025, down from 58 in fiscal 2024. The cases included seven administrative actions and six civil injunctive cases.

The fiscal 2025 total consisted of five fraud matters, one manipulation or spoofing case, one trade-practice case, two supervision or systems-error cases, and four reporting, recordkeeping or related supervision cases.

On Oct. 5, the CFTC issued an advance notice of proposed rulemaking covering certain retail commodity transactions involving crypto assets. The agency is also considering a crypto-asset market category for designated contract markets. Comments are due within 60 days after the notice is published in the Federal Register.

CFTC Chairman Michael S. Selig said the framework would provide a “uniform national market regulatory framework” for crypto-asset transactions.

“The American people deserve clarity, certainty, and consumer protections in the crypto asset markets,” Selig said.

The CFTC published an advance notice of proposed rulemaking for prediction markets on March 16. The proposal would establish factors and procedures for determining whether event contracts involving gaming or other activities should be prohibited as contrary to the public interest. The comment period closed April 30.

Seven designated contract markets received designations in 2025, followed by six more through July 24, 2026. Polymarket US was designated on July 9, 2025, although the records do not establish that every newly designated exchange operated a prediction market.

In February 2025, Acting CFTC Chair Caroline D. Pham announced a restructuring of the enforcement division focused on fraud and victims and intended to end “regulation by enforcement.”

“The CFTC is strengthening its enforcement program to focus on victims of fraud, as well as remaining vigilant for other violations of law,” Pham said.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said July 22 that the CFTC workforce had shrunk by approximately 25% since January 2025. She asked the Government Accountability Office to review whether staffing cuts impaired enforcement and the agency’s broader derivatives-market responsibilities.

“Since January 2025, the agency’s staff has shrunk by 25 percent,” Warren said.

The CFTC oversees futures, options, swaps and designated contract markets under the Commodity Exchange Act. Its current agenda includes proposed rules for crypto transactions and prediction markets, along with oversight of newly designated exchanges.

Comments on the crypto-asset rulemaking are due within 60 days after publication in the Federal Register.