Michael Selig named two individuals as senior advisers, certainly one of whom helped with a regulation agency‘s letter that led to an SEC no-action letter on crypto custodians.
Michael Selig, chair of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), announced the appointment of a senior adviser with experience in litigating crypto and blockchain cases.
In a Tuesday notice, Selig said Michael Passalacqua, a former associate at international law firm Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, would join the CFTC as a senior adviser. Selig cited Passalacqua’s experience with “financial regulatory matters involving crypto assets and blockchain technologies.”
“Earlier in his career, [Passalacqua] served as assistant common counsel at a crypto asset capital markets agency the place he suggested on a variety of crypto asset regulatory and transactional issues,” stated Selig.
In keeping with Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, Passalacqua helped writer a letter that led the US Securities and Change Fee to difficulty a no-action letter clearing state-chartered belief corporations to behave as crypto custodians. The company’s Division of Funding Administration stated in September that it will not advocate submitting enforcement actions in opposition to advisers utilizing a state belief firm as a crypto custodian.
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Selig named Passalacqua and former Treasury Division official Cal Mitchell as senior advisers because the CFTC prepares for an expanded function in crypto regulation. The appointments got here as Selig stated the fee is working to “future-proof” its regulatory strategy, citing pending US Senate laws that may give the CFTC a “broad set of recent duties” over digital asset markets.
Selig’s remarks adopted comparable statements from SEC Chair Paul Atkins, who stated in October the securities regulator would work to “future-proof” US President Donald Trump’s crypto agenda. Some specialists have warned that most of the president’s insurance policies, together with these on digital property, may very well be reversed if Democrats achieve management of the Senate or Home of Representatives within the 2026 elections.
CFTC chair stays the only real commissioner
Selig, nominated by Trump following the resignation of former appearing Chair Caroline Pham, is the company’s solely serving commissioner after an exodus of management in 2025. As of Tuesday, Trump had not made any bulletins signaling that he deliberate to appoint different commissioners to fill the CFTC, both Republican or Democrat.
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