Securities Regulation Daily Wrap Up, CFTC NEWS AND SPEECHES: Pham says industry approaching tokenization of traditional market structure, (Nov 18, 2025)

By Suzanne Cosgrove.

“This is our opportunity to shape the next chapter of financial revolution,” the CFTC’s acting chair said in a speech at the FIA Expo.

In what might have been one of her last appearances at an Futures Industry Association meeting while serving as acting chair of the CFTC, Caroline Pham reviewed her progress of nearly a year and said she believed the financial industry is at a “parallel moment” with patterns that became unmistakable in the 1970s and 1980s— the electrification of securities markets, which transformed the very architecture of price discovery, market access, and risk management. “What began (then) as incremental automation evolved into a wholesale rethinking of how markets operate, driving efficiency, transparency and resilience on the scale that was unimaginable at the outset,” Pham said.

Blockchain technology and the tokenization of financial instruments are not merely new tools, she added. “Just as electronic trading shifted us from paper tickets to integrated data rich environments,” distributed ledgers shift us from cyber recordkeeping to shared, programmable and verifiable systems of value.

One year later. Last November, the Digital Asset Market Subcommittee of the CFTC global market committee had just released its first recommendations on tokenization. The report made the case that tokenization is simply another technological tracker for existing assets, and that modern coins can add efficiency, she noted.

A year later, as more of the world evolved toward 24/7 markets, those initial findings are more relevant than ever, Pham said. Blockchains have proven durability as constantly upgradable financial markets infrastructure, which presents an opportunity to improve the old ways of managing the cloud, she said.

She cited as a highlight of her tenure, which began in January 2025 when former CFTC Chairman Rostin Behnam stepped down, the CFTC’s Crypto Sprint, an initiative designed to implement the President's Working Group recommendations on digital assets, which is focused on listed spot crypto trading, tokenized collateral, and DCOs.

No more agency turf war. Pham cited the CFTC’s first joint roundtable with the SEC in 15 years as another highpoint of the last year, as well as the issuing of a stack advisory on risk management and compliance requirements for DCMS, DCOs, and others.

The President's Working Group report recommends that the SEC and CFTC use their existing authorities to immediately enable the trading of digital assets at the federal level by providing clarity to market participants on issues such as registration, custody, trading, and record keeping, she pointed out, and allow innovative financial products to reach consumers without use of tools like safe harbors and regulatory sandboxes.

“For too long, a lack of clarity and regulation by enforcement policy has held back U.S. businesses and entrepreneurs, while the rest of the world established frameworks for digital assets and crypto to facilitate innovation in their jurisdictions, she said.

Still on the Commission's agenda. Pham ticked off a list of pending issues still on the CFTC’s agenda awaiting final actions, possibly by year-end. Those include:

• Issuing proposed rules on swap dealer external business conflict and documentation, and on cleared funds;

• Providing relief to eliminate “unnecessary” reporting burdens for swap data reporting efforts;

• Increasing liquidity from non-bank providers in energy markets to lower the cost of living for Americans and help unleash U.S. energy production;

• Provide guidance on the use of tokenized collateral, including stablecoins, in derivatives markets.

“If we approach blockchain and tokenization, sustaining pragmatism, curiosity and commitment to fairness that guided earlier heroism and modernization, we can unlock the efficiencies of digital assets while preserving trust,” she said. “This is our opportunity to shape the next chapter of financial revolution, one that builds on history rather than repeating it, and one that ensures U.S. markets remain a global benchmark for innovation and integrity.”

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