CFTC and SEC Push New Crypto Rules Following Clarity Act Defeat
Following the Senate's rejection of the Clarity Act, U.S. regulators have rapidly moved to issue their own frameworks for digital assets and prediction markets. On Thursday, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) issued a no-action letter granting introducing-broker relief to passive trading software providers. This regulatory shift allows software providers to connect users to regulated derivatives without registering as brokers, according to Decrypt. Cointelegraph notes this move will specifically make it easier for crypto wallets and apps to offer access to prediction markets.
This coordinated push follows statements from CFTC Chairman Michael Selig and SEC Chairman Paul Atkins. After the Clarity Act failed, Selig stated the CFTC is "locked in and ready to ship its rules," while the SEC issued a five-year conditional exemption allowing tokenized National Market System (NMS) stocks to trade on permissioned automated market makers, as reported by The Defiant.
Polymarket Overhauls Tech Stack
As regulatory access broadens, leading prediction platform Polymarket is undergoing a major technical overhaul. The company has hired the former Zora CEO to lead an onchain product push. Polymarket's vice president of DeFi engineering confirmed the platform's existing central limit order book "cannot be saved long term" and is currently being rebuilt in Rust, according to The Defiant. For traders tracking these platform upgrades and market shifts, predictionmarketstools.com provides essential onchain analytics.
Macro Pressures Weigh on Crypto
These regulatory and platform developments arrive amid broader market pressure. Crypto markets saw a broad sell-off on Friday, with Bitcoin trading at $77,120 and 103 of the top 125 non-stablecoin tokens trading lower. The downturn follows August producer prices coming in at 0.4%, pushing rate hike odds to 64% as Brent crude topped $106, The Defiant reports. Despite the broader sell-off, Ether.fi managed a 14.2% gain following a recently closed buyback vote.