The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission is stepping up its crypto oversight work — naming the inaugural members of a new Innovation Task Force and launching an “innovation tracker” — as Congress continues to debate the CLARITY Act, which would more sharply delineate the agency’s role versus the SEC’s in digital-asset regulation.
CFTC chairman Mike Selig created the task force on March 24 and tapped Michael Passalacqua to lead it. On Friday the agency confirmed the first five members: Hank Balaban, Sam Canavos, Mark Fajfar, Eugene Gonzalez IV and Dina Moussa. The team is charged with supporting the agency’s work on crypto, prediction markets and other emerging technologies.
Selig framed the slate as bringing “strong legal and policy experience” to the table, saying the group “exhibits deep expertise and an enthusiastic commitment to deliver clear rules of the road for American innovators.”
Alongside the appointments, the CFTC unveiled an innovation tracker — a public page designed to document initiatives completed under Selig’s leadership and to highlight the agency’s efforts to foster regulatory clarity, protect market integrity and encourage responsible tech development. The tracker organizes work into three broad areas: crypto and blockchain, artificial intelligence and autonomous systems, and contracts and prediction markets.
The moves come amid an ongoing debate in Washington over which regulator should oversee various types of digital assets. If lawmakers pass the CLARITY Act, the CFTC could gain expanded authority over certain tokens and related markets. That bill has not yet become law.
SEC chair Paul Atkins weighed in on X, saying both agencies are “ready to implement the CLARITY Act” and urging Congress to pass “comprehensive market structure legislation” and send it to President Trump’s desk.
For market participants, the CFTC’s new task force and tracker signal a more active, organized push to shape crypto policy — even as the ultimate statutory framework remains in the hands of lawmakers.
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