<span class=”acf-media-credit”><span class=”acf-credit”><span class=”acf-credit”><a href=”theblock.co” target=”_blank”>The Block</a></span></span><span class=”acf-credit”> | <span class=”acf-credit”><a href=”https://www.cftc.gov/About/Commissioners/CarolineDPham/index.htm#full-page-bio” target=”_blank”>Provided by the CFTC</a></span></span></span>
Ex-Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Acting Chair Caroline Pham mentioned that the Commodity Exchange Act already grants the organization authority over nearly all assets aside from onions and cinema box office takings.
“There is very little that the CFTC’s jurisdiction doesn’t touch because the way that the Commodity Exchange Act is drafted, pretty much everything is a commodity except for onions and movie box office receipts,” Pham, currently the chief legal officer and chief administrative officer at MoonPay, stated to The Block during an interview at Token2049 Singapore.
Following the collapse of the Clarity Act in the preceding month, numerous sector participants have pivoted their attention toward agency rule creation, while certain individuals continue advocating for official legislation. Pham argued that the regulatory structure of the CFTC is adequate, having been engineered with a flexible, principles-based approach capable of accommodating novel commodity classes, mentioning AI computing power as an illustration.
“Now people are looking at having AI compute markets and being able to put derivatives on AI compute,” Pham remarked. “This is exactly what the CFTC’s regulatory framework was designed to anticipate.”
The CFTC, directed by Chairman Michael Selig, has actively published proposed rules targeting the digital asset industry, most recently featuring an advanced notice concerning Regulation CAM and Regulation CTX. The regulatory body stated it would establish a national structure for leveraged retail cryptocurrency trading to serve as an alternative to state-level licenses.
Pham stated that this recent proposal acts as a continuation of the CFTC Crypto Sprint campaign she initiated back in 2025, which permitted the inaugural trading of spot cryptocurrencies on platforms registered with the CFTC. That initiative depended upon a provision from the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act mandating that leveraged, margined, or financed retail commodity transactions must take place on a regulated exchange—a stipulation the CFTC left unenforced for years.
“That’s absolutely the kind of protection that we should have for retail traders in crypto in the United States,” Pham further noted. “Much better to put it on a strongly regulated exchange than to leave it kind of out there for a patchwork of different laws.”
Stablecoins v. tokenized deposits
Pham also argued that the market is overestimating the significance of stablecoins relative to tokenized deposits within wholesale markets, pointing out that an atomic settlement covering a single trading day would demand roughly $15 trillion in non-existent cash.
“If you were to actually calculate all of the cash that would be required in a trading day using atomically settled, real-time settlement on blockchain, it would be $15 trillion,” she said. “There is not $15 trillion that can change hands in one day.”
She noted that commercial banks presently handle this volume via net settlement, where participating parties offset mutual obligations and transfer only the remaining balances. Tokenized deposits will be “absolutely necessary” for this exact mechanism, according to her statements.
Conversely, stablecoins prove more advantageous in scenarios where counterparties lack mutual acquaintance or trust, or when the objective is eliminating settlement risk by executing the simultaneous delivery of cash and the underlying asset, Pham explained.
‘Real’ tokenized stocks in two years
Addressing tokenized equities, Pham expressed anticipation that Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange will list tokenized company shares and experience genuine trading volume and activity within a two-year window.
“The [SEC’s] innovation exemption is very clearly about creating a regulated pathway for real stocks, like stocks that are listed on the NYSE and Nasdaq, to be able to be listed on these tokenized securities venues within an SEC regulatory framework,” Pham stated. She additionally highlighted collaborations such as Nasdaq’s partnership with Payward and the New York Stock Exchange parent company ICE’s partnership with OKX as distinct indicators of traditional finance converging with native crypto technology.
She differentiated these compliant instruments from synthetic tokens issued without official approval, referencing public remarks made by AMC Entertainment CEO Adam Aron.
“Real securities involve voting rights, and you’re a shareholder in the company you have governance over,” she explained. “That’s why you have a shareholder annual meeting. Everybody loves to go to Omaha for the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting, because you actually own part of the place.”
Pham additionally predicted a subsequent wave of non-fungible tokens once regulatory conditions become clearer, characterizing them primarily as customer engagement instruments rather than financial securities. She likened NFTs to established loyalty incentives such as airline miles or Starbucks reward points, observing that prior regulatory enforcement actions under the previous administration had suppressed activity that lacked any equivalence to equity ownership.
Originally published at https://www.theblock.co/news/regulation/2026-10-12-former-cftc-acting-chair-caroline-pham-onions-418246.
