The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), under the leadership of Caroline D. Pham, plans to allow tokenized securities such as stablecoins in the US derivatives markets for the first time. The goal is to deploy capital more efficiently and advance market modernization.

Stablecoins are seen as a “killer app.” Pham emphasized that stablecoins are the key technology for collateral management. The initiative builds on recommendations from the President’s Working Group on Digital Assets and the CFTC’s Global Markets Advisory Committee.

It has broad industry support from Circle, Coinbase, Ripple, Tether, and Crypto.com. The initiative is part of the CFTC’s so-called “Crypto Sprint,” with which the agency aims to lead the US into a “Golden Age of Crypto.” It builds on previous successes with pilot programs and regulatory sandboxes.

By allowing stablecoins as collateral, the CFTC is placing digital assets at the heart of the US financial markets. Instead of being used only in crypto ecosystems, stablecoins could, in the future, hedge regulated derivatives. This would make settlements cheaper, faster, and more efficient. At the same time, supervision lends the tokens a new level of legitimacy and opens the door to their broad institutional use.