DEX in the City: Why the Prediction Market Bans Could Just Be Beginning
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A new joint token taxonomy provides regulatory certainty - the CFTC and SEC have issued guidance categorizing most major digital assets as commodities, providing the clarity necessary for traditional financial firms to finally allocate capital to the US market.
“The headline item is most major digital assets are now clearly in the commodity side of the regulatory categorization ledger, which is a level of certainty for market participants that lets you start to build new products, allocate capital with certainty in the United States.”
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The CFTC is shifting toward regulation by regulation - under Chairman Michael Selig, the agency is moving away from an enforcement-led approach in favor of formal rulemakings and advisory task forces focusing on DeFi, AI, and prediction markets.
“Stylistically and from a tone perspective, there is an intentional transition from regulation by enforcement to regulation by regulation.”
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Global demand will force US equity perpetuals - while the current US regulatory regime for security futures is commercially non-viable, the rise of global onchain derivatives will necessitate a functional US parallel for perpetuals on equities like Tesla and Apple.
“There will be perpetuals on equities in the global on-chain derivatives market, and the US is going to have to have a parallel product.”