Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Chairman Michael Selig said on Tuesday that crypto and precious metals "may currently be suitable for 24/7 trading" in U.S. derivatives markets, urging regulators and market operators to prepare for what he called the "mass tokenization" of finance.

Selig made the remarks at the New York Federal Reserve's U.S. Treasury Market Conference, according to his prepared remarks. He said the agency will not apply a one-size-fits-all rulebook to every product, noting that agricultural products, energy, and certain financial contracts may not suit nonstop trading.

That asset-by-asset framing matters because crypto markets already trade continuously while U.S. futures exchanges run on defined trading sessions, meaning any extension of hours would be decided product by product rather than market wide.

June consultation tests nonstop energy futures and oil perpetuals

In June, the CFTC opened a public comment window on 24/7 energy futures and perpetual contracts tied to physical commodities such as crude oil. Selig also said at the time that the commission would review perpetual contract listings on an asset-by-asset basis.

The energy review offers a window into that process: public comments from exchanges and traders form the record on which the commission weighs whether a given product is ready for nonstop trading.

$1.2 quadrillion derivatives market must prepare for tokenization

"With developments like tokenization, onchain finance, and 24/7 trading, the next decade will likely bring more change to financial markets than the previous several decades combined," Selig said.

He likened tokenization to the industry's earlier shift from open-outcry hand signals to electronic trading, and said high-quality tokenized collateral "has the potential to make liquidity more dynamic and markets more resilient."

Selig noted that daily Treasury futures turnover grew from about $200 billion to about $900 billion over 20 years, and that approximately half of the $1.2 quadrillion in global notional derivatives sits under the CFTC's oversight — a scope that puts the agency's collateral and listing rules at the center of how tokenized markets could develop.

In February, the CFTC added certain payment stablecoins issued by national trust banks to its list of eligible collateral, and in March it issued tokenized collateral FAQs. Selig said the commission seeks more ways to "encourage responsible stablecoin adoption for market participants, exchanges, and clearinghouses." Eligible-collateral rulings define which assets clearing participants may post against positions, making those moves the commission's most concrete yet toward onchain assets functioning inside regulated derivatives markets.

Regulatory backdrop

Selig took over the CFTC in December 2025 and earlier this year launched an innovation task force covering crypto, AI, and prediction markets. He is the lone active commissioner on a panel that normally has five members.

The CLARITY Act, the market-structure bill to set the ground rules for crypto, failed to capture the 60 votes it needed in the Senate on September 15. The next day, Selig posted on X that the CFTC is "locked in and ready to ship its rules for the new frontier of finance."

The SEC issued its Innovation Exemption on September 17, opening a path for tokenized securities venues to engage in onchain trading of certain tokenized U.S. stocks. With Senate ground rules still unsettled, the next signals are procedural: the outcome of the open comment window and the commission's individual listing reviews will indicate which products the CFTC deems ready for round-the-clock trading.