CFTC Approves Spot Crypto Trading on U.S. Exchanges

‘Crypto Capital’ Pledge Fulfilled

This breakthrough aligns with the Trump administration’s early 2025 executive orders promoting digital assets as engines of innovation. It contrasts sharply with the prior regime’s enforcement-heavy approach, which drove 95% of U.S. spot volume to unregulated foreign platforms.

Exchanges must now enforce real-time surveillance, daily position limits, and segregated custody, standards that have underpinned CFTC markets for nearly a century.

Pham hailed the decision as a fulfillment of President Trump’s pledge to make America the “crypto capital of the world.” The sole dissenter, Commissioner Kristin Johnson, raised concerns over potential leverage risks echoing the 2022 crashes, though the majority emphasized built-in safeguards like mandatory margin requirements.

The scars from three years back remain vivid in boardrooms and trading desks. The TerraUSD stablecoin’s May 2022 depeg triggered a $40 billion wipeout, followed by FTX’s November bankruptcy that vaporized another $8 billion in customer funds.

Those failures, tied to lax offshore venues, fueled SEC lawsuits against 50-plus crypto firms and left U.S. investors sidelined from direct spot access.

Global spot volumes hit $80 billion daily by late 2025, yet regulated U.S. channels captured under 5%, per Kaiko data.

The CFTC’s move addresses that gap head-on.

Designated Contract Markets like Bitnomial, which self-certified its rules on December 1, plan to launch spot Bitcoin and Ethereum trading the week of December 8. Initial volumes could reach $500 million daily, analysts project, drawing from the $110 billion in spot Bitcoin ETFs approved in January 2024.

This isn’t uncharted territory for the CFTC. Since 2017, Bitcoin futures have traded on its platforms, amassing $30 trillion in notional value. Spot approval extends that framework, permitting USDC as collateral for margined trades and requiring large-trader reports to curb manipulation, a tool that flagged irregularities in 2019 futures markets.

Scale and Safeguards in Focus

The numbers underscore the transformation.

• Spot crypto’s global daily turnover rivals the $100 billion forex market slice for emerging currencies.
• U.S. ETF inflows alone added $25 billion to Bitcoin’s price in 2025, lifting it from $45,000 at year-start to $97,000 post-announcement.
• Ethereum followed with an 8% spike, reflecting $15 billion in staked assets now eligible for regulated trading.

Critics point to lingering vulnerabilities. Offshore hacks in 2023-2024 siphoned $1.7 billion from exchanges like Ronin and Multichain, incidents that the CFTC’s rules aim to preempt through audited custodians and breach notifications within 24 hours. Compared to peers, the agency’s track record shines: zero major failures on registered platforms since 2010, versus the SEC’s handful of broker-dealer breaches costing $200 million.

Institutional Momentum

Institutional momentum is accelerating. JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs, which tested crypto custody in 2024, now plan to expand into prime brokerage for spot markets, with institutional inflows projected to hit $10 billion in Q1 2026. BNY Mellon, which already safeguards $5 billion in digital assets, broadened its services in July 2025 under the GENIUS

Act, Trump’s stablecoin framework that standardized licensing requirements for issuers.

SEC Chair Paul Atkins, confirmed in April after Gensler’s January departure, echoed the shift in a joint statement, highlighting the agency’s rollback of 20 prior crypto enforcement actions. A long-time blockchain advocate, Atkins expects full market-structure legislation by mid-2026, building on the January executive order that banned a U.S. CBDC and launched the President’s Working Group on Digital Assets.

The administration’s pivot also aligns with the creation of the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, stocked with $2.5 billion in seized BTC since March, signaling a preference for federal oversight instead of the export-control approach that once constrained U.S. miners. Still, key questions remain: Can spot trading volumes surpass the $4 billion monthly derivatives peak seen in March? Or will volatility expose familiar risks if leverage pressures retail traders, as it did during the 2022 market crash?

Thursday’s approval marks a turning point for regulated growth. The real challenge now is execution. As U.S. platforms scale up, the CFTC must demonstrate it can manage crypto volatility without repeating the unchecked excesses of past cycles.