The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) on Monday launched a pilot program allowing select digital assets: bitcoin ether and USD Coin (USDC) or other payment stablecoins, which will be used as collateral in US derivatives markets.
The program, announced by interim chair Caroline Pham, is part of a broader push to provide market participants with clear rules for the use of tokenized collateral, including tokenized versions of real-world assets such as US Treasuries.
“Today, I am launching a digital asset pilot program in the US for tokenized collateral, including bitcoin and ether, in our derivatives markets, which establishes clear guardrails to protect client assets and provides enhanced CFTC tracking and reporting,” Pham said in a statement.
The CFTC had already started working on allowing stablecoins to be used as collateral for certain products earlier this year.
For now, the program applies only to futures commission merchants (FCM) who meet certain criteria. These firms can accept BTC, ETH, and payment stablecoins like USDC as margin collateral for futures and swaps, but must comply with strict reporting and custody requirements. For the first three months, they must provide weekly information on digital asset holdings and alert the CFTC of any problems.
In practice, this could mean a registered company accepting bitcoin as collateral for a commodity-linked leveraged swap, while the CFTC oversees operational risks and custody arrangements behind the scenes.
The agency also issued a no-action letter granting FCMs limited permission to hold certain digital assets in segregated client accounts, as long as they manage risks carefully. Importantly, the CFTC withdrew previous 2020 guidelines that had effectively blocked the use of cryptocurrencies as collateral in many cases. That notice is now considered outdated, especially after the passage of the GENIUS Act, which updated federal rules on digital assets.
Industry executives praised the move. “This important unlocking is precisely what the Administration and Congress intended the GENIUS Act to allow,” Coinbase Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal said in a statement shared by the CFTC.
The CFTC emphasized that its rules remain technologically neutral, but said that real-world tokenized assets, such as Treasuries, must still meet applicability, custody and valuation standards.
