The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) on Thursday sent a proposal to the White House to regulate crypto transactions and markets, pressing forward with digital asset rulemaking even as landmark legislation remains stalled in Congress.

Specifics remain scarce: the proposal, titled “Regulation Crypto Asset Transactions and Regulation Crypto Asset Markets,” was posted to the Office of Management and Budget’s website, though the filing offers little indication of what the final rules will look like. A listing on the OMB’s regulatory review dashboard signals that the proposal has entered the White House’s centralized review process, which typically precedes an agency formally publishing the rule text and opening it for public comment.

The CFTC’s move comes after lawmakers blocked the long-awaited Clarity Act on Tuesday. Despite the legislation failing to advance, both the CFTC and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) have said they would proceed with crypto rulemaking regardless. With Congress deadlocked, that commitment puts the agencies — not lawmakers — in position to define how digital asset businesses are overseen in the near term.

CFTC Chair Mike Selig said on Wednesday that although the Clarity Act did not move forward, the agency would still help U.S. President Trump “get the job done” in regulating the crypto space.

“The outcome of yesterday’s Senate vote was unfortunate,” Selig wrote on X, adding that the CFTC was “locked in and ready to ship its rules for the new frontier of finance.”

Before this week’s procedural vote on the legislation, Selig had said the agency would move ahead with rulemaking whether or not the Clarity Act is enacted, with the aim of finalizing the rules before the administration’s term ends.

Senators confirmed Selig as the regulator’s chair last year. A former chief counsel at the SEC’s Crypto Task Force, Selig was described by White House Crypto and AI Tsar David Sacks as “instrumental in driving forward the President’s crypto agenda.”

President Trump campaigned on a pledge to support the crypto industry after regulators under the previous administration hit digital asset businesses with lawsuits, most of them over the alleged sale of unregistered securities. Since Trump took office, the SEC and CFTC have adopted a markedly friendlier approach to overseeing the space.

The CFTC is not the only regulator moving forward. The SEC earlier this week approved trading of tokenized stocks, and in August it proposed its own framework for crypto asset offerings, pressing ahead while the landmark legislation stalled.

President Trump last month urged lawmakers to pass the Clarity Act, calling the legislation “very powerful,” while Republicans accused Democrats of deliberately holding the bill back.

Democrats’ objections centered mainly on the ethics side of the bill. Trump received backing from major industry players during his campaign, and since becoming president his family has made money from digital asset ventures. Some lawmakers have alleged conflicts of interest; the White House has consistently denied any wrongdoing.

A new draft of the bill began circulating in July, tackling ethics concerns and barring officials from profiting from crypto. But some Democrats said it did not go far enough.

The Clarity Act seeks to formally divide oversight between regulators, distinguishing which digital assets count as securities, commodities, or stablecoins. Until such a split is written into law, the agencies’ parallel rulemakings — the CFTC on transactions and markets, the SEC on token offerings — will shape the regulatory landscape U.S. crypto firms must navigate.

This article first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and was written by Mathew Di Salvo.