Caroline Pham, acting chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, said in statement that the U.S regulator is launching a digital assets pilot program for certain digital assets to be used as collateral in derivatives markets and that establishes clear guardrails to protect customer assets and provides enhanced CFTC monitoring and reporting.

Pham said: “The CFTC is also providing regulatory clarity through tokenized collateral guidance for real world assets like U.S. Treasuries, and withdrawing CFTC requirements that are now outdated under the GENIUS Act.”

I’m launching a digital assets pilot program for BTC, ETH and USDC that will protect Americans under U.S. rules when you use @CFTC brokers to keep your crypto safe. Our new guidance will enable tokenized markets, and we’re cutting red tape that is outdated. Onwards!…

— Caroline D. Pham (@CarolineDPham) December 8, 2025

Max Avery, CBDO & principal at Digital Ascension Group, which provides family office services for crypto-focused high net worth individuals and families, said: 

This is a big deal

When you trade derivatives (futures, swaps), you have to post collateral. This is called margin. Traditionally, that means cash or Treasury securities. The CFTC just said: okay, you can now post bitcoin, ether, and USDC instead.

If you're an institutional… https://t.co/JdpCxGbjlL

— Max Avery (@realMaxAvery) December 8, 2025

“One of the structural problems with using crypto in traditional finance has been the mismatch between crypto (which never sleeps) and traditional markets (which close for weekends and holidays). If your margin is in crypto and can settle instantly, you can actually manage risk around the clock instead of sweating through weekends hoping nothing blows up before Monday.

The CFTC withdrew Staff Advisory 20-34 from 2020, which put restrictions on accepting virtual currencies as customer collateral. This was basically a “go slow” guidance from a more skeptical era & they’re saying the GENIUS Act made it obsolete.

For the first three months, FCMs (the firms that actually handle customer funds in futures markets) are limited to BTC, ETH, and USDC only. They have to report weekly on how much they’re holding. They have to notify the CFTC immediately if anything goes wrong.

This is the CFTC doing what regulators should do: allowing something new while keeping close tabs on it. I consider this the CFTC basically saying: “we want this business happening on US-regulated platforms where we can see it and customers have protections, not on offshore platforms where people get wrecked when things go sideways.”

Brian Armstrong, co-founder & chief executive, and Paul Grewal, chief legal officer at U.S.-listed crypto exchange Coinbase, said: 

A huge step in updating our financial system. Thanks to Acting Chair @CarolineDPham and the CFTC for getting this done. https://t.co/mI0nejwarU

— Brian Armstrong (@brian_armstrong) December 9, 2025

A pivotal step forward for US markets: the @CFTC has provided guidance for the use of crypto, including stablecoins, as collateral in US derivatives markets.

This opens a path for FCMs to use digital assets as customer collateral all within the CFTC framework.

This is a huge… pic.twitter.com/zSTIslSPpo

— Coinbase Institutional 🛡️ (@CoinbaseInsto) December 8, 2025

Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos, general counsel of Starkware, the developer of a cryptographic zero-knowledge proof system that seeks to improve scalablity in blockchains, said:

This was inevitable. Tokenized collateral in the derivatives markets is MASSIVE. Atomic settlement, transparency, automation, capital efficiency, savings. Feels abrupt but who recalls the tokenization summit in 2/24, a glimmer of hope in the darkness! https://t.co/xZFiiNiBhI

— Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos (@kkirkbos) December 8, 2025

Faryar Shirzad, chief policy officer at U.S. stablecoin issuer Circle, said:

Congress passed the GENIUS Act on a bipartisan basis to set the stage for stablecoins to become a critical settlement instrument in our financial system of the future.

Acting Chair @CarolineDPham and @CFTC’s decision today is a big step towards that vision and strengthens… https://t.co/1qiHGOclnn

— Faryar Shirzad 🛡️ (@faryarshirzad) December 8, 2025

James Davies, founder of DRN Fund, which provides counterparty risk management for institutional derivatives participants, said:

2/ Moving collateral faster doesn't answer the credit question.
When a counterparty defaults at 3am Saturday, who absorbs the loss? Traditional CCPs use mutualized default funds – capital trapped from every member, allocated through manual processes during business hours.
That…

— James Davies (@jlldavies) December 9, 2025

4/ This isn't a criticism – it's where the work is.
The CFTC just opened the door for real tokenized derivatives markets. Now we need credit infrastructure that actually works for them.

— James Davies (@jlldavies) December 9, 2025

.

.