Former CFTC Chair Caroline Pham Says Crypto Can Advance Without Congress, Sees Tokenized NYSE and Nasdaq Stocks in Two Years

Published October 12, 2026, 11:15 PKT. Based on The Block's interview with Caroline Pham at Token2049 Singapore, published October 12, 2026, and corroborated by Odaily, TradingView News and BBX.

Caroline Pham, the former acting chair of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission who now serves as chief legal officer and chief administrative officer at MoonPay, said the crypto industry can move forward on regulation through agency rulemaking without waiting for Congress, in an interview with The Block at Token2049 Singapore published on October 12, 2026.

The CFTC's reach: everything except onions and box office receipts

"There is very little that the CFTC's jurisdiction doesn't touch because the way that the Commodity Exchange Act is drafted, pretty much everything is a commodity except for onions and movie box office receipts," Pham told The Block. She argued the agency's framework was designed to be principles-based and flexible enough to cover new kinds of commodities, pointing to markets for AI compute and derivatives written on it as an example of what the framework was built to anticipate.

Pham said many industry figures have shifted their focus to agency rulemaking after the Clarity Act failed last month, according to The Block, though some still push for formal legislation. The comments land as the industry recalibrates its Washington strategy around rulemakings rather than a market structure bill.

The Crypto Sprint path for retail crypto

Under Chairman Michael Selig, the CFTC has been issuing proposed rulemakings for the crypto sector, most recently an advance notice on Regulation CAM and Regulation CTX that would create a federal framework for leveraged retail crypto transactions as an alternative to state licenses, The Block reported. Pham said the proposal continues the CFTC Crypto Sprint initiative she launched in 2025, which authorized the first-ever trading of spot crypto on CFTC-registered exchanges. That effort relied on a 2010 Dodd-Frank provision requiring leveraged, margined or financed retail commodity transactions to occur on a regulated exchange, a rule the agency left unenforced for years.

"That's absolutely the kind of protection that we should have for retail traders in crypto in the United States," Pham told The Block. "Much better to put it on a strongly regulated exchange than to leave it kind of out there for a patchwork of different laws."

Why tokenized deposits beat stablecoins in wholesale markets

Pham said the industry is overestimating the role of stablecoins in wholesale markets relative to tokenized deposits. "If you were to actually calculate all of the cash that would be required in a trading day using atomically settled, real-time settlement on blockchain, it would be $15 trillion," she said. "There is not $15 trillion that can change hands in one day." Banks currently handle the volume through net settlement, in which counterparties offset obligations and exchange only the residual amounts, and that is where tokenized deposits will be "absolutely necessary," she said.

Stablecoins, she said, are more useful in settings where counterparties do not know or trust each other, or where the goal is to eliminate settlement risk by delivering the asset and the cash simultaneously.

Real tokenized stocks in two years

On tokenized equities, Pham said she expects the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq to list tokenized shares of companies and to see "real" trading activity and volume within the next two years. "The [SEC's] innovation exemption is very clearly about creating a regulated pathway for real stocks, like stocks that are listed on the NYSE and Nasdaq, to be able to be listed on these tokenized securities venues within an SEC regulatory framework," she said, according to The Block. She pointed to Nasdaq's Payward partnership and NYSE parent ICE's OKX partnership as clear examples of traditional finance converging with crypto technology.

She distinguished those instruments from synthetic tokens that issuers have not approved, citing public comments from AMC Entertainment CEO Adam Aron. "Real securities involve voting rights, and you're a shareholder in the company you have governance over," Pham said.

A second wave of NFTs, like loyalty points

Pham said she expects a second wave of NFTs once regulatory clarity improves, but framed them as tools for customer engagement rather than securities. She compared them to loyalty programs such as Starbucks points or airline miles, and said prior U.S. enforcement in the last administration had chilled activity that was not equivalent to equity ownership.

This article is news reporting and is not investment advice.

Sources

• The Block, interview with Caroline Pham at Token2049 Singapore (October 12, 2026), primary source for Pham's comments on CFTC jurisdiction, the Clarity Act, the Crypto Sprint, stablecoins versus tokenized deposits, tokenized equities and NFTs
• Odaily (October 12, 2026), secondary source corroborating the interview's publication and Pham's claim that crypto can advance through regulatory rulemaking without Congress
• TradingView News (October 12, 2026), secondary source for the $15 trillion settlement figure, the two-year tokenized stocks prediction and the Nasdaq Payward and ICE OKX examples
• BBX (October 12, 2026), secondary source corroborating Pham's statements and her MoonPay role