Regulation & Politics

The world's largest derivatives exchange operator said Wednesday it will sue the CFTC over the agency's approval of Kalshi's bitcoin perpetual futures, arguing the contracts should be classified as swaps under the Dodd-Frank Act.

Congressional negotiators folded a statutory ban on a Federal Reserve central bank digital currency into the bipartisan 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, blocking any Fed-issued retail digital dollar until December 31, 2030. The text now heads back to the Senate floor.

Illinois Governor JB Pritzker has signed SB 3019, the Digital Asset Privilege Tax Act, making the state the first in the country to impose a transaction-based tax on everyday digital-asset activity. The Crypto Council for Innovation is pushing for a line-item veto of Article 3.

Greece's Hellenic Capital Market Commission appears set to reject Binance's MiCA license application, putting the world's largest crypto exchange on course to lose EU client access on July 1. Binance disputes the account and says its application was considered compliant, promising an update before June 30.

A coalition of federally recognized tribes and Indian regulatory bodies filed amicus briefs in two federal cases, arguing CFTC preemption would nullify tribal-state gaming compacts and strip tribes of authority to regulate Kalshi and Polymarket on Native land.

The Blockchain Association brought member executives to Capitol Hill this week, reporting meetings with more than half the Senate as it presses lawmakers to preserve the BRCA developer-protection provision of the CLARITY Act before an August recess deadline.

CFTC staff issued release 9252-26 on Friday, giving designated contract markets a no-action path to convert existing perpetual-style digital commodity futures into true perpetuals, advancing the agency's buildout of a regulated US crypto derivatives market.

The federal derivatives regulator filed suit Thursday in federal court seeking to bar New Mexico from enforcing state gaming laws against CFTC-registered prediction-market exchanges, making New Mexico the eighth state to face federal litigation over the question of exclusive jurisdiction.

Former CFTC and SEC chair Gary Gensler filed an amicus brief with the Sixth Circuit arguing that sports-event prediction markets are not swaps under Dodd-Frank, directly contradicting the CFTC's own position in the KalshiEX v. Ohio appeal.

Japan's lower house passed a bill amending the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act to regulate crypto like stocks, opening a path to regulated ETFs by 2027 and cutting the capital-gains tax from up to 55% to a flat 20%. Upper-house passage is pending; the reform is not yet law.