CFTC Chair Says ‘Mass Tokenization’ and 24/7 Onchain Markets Are Already Here

The head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission says the next version of financial markets is no longer a distant concept. It is arriving through tokenized assets, round-the-clock trading, onchain settlement and increasingly automated finance.

CFTC Chair Michael Selig used a September 22 speech at the 2026 U.S. Treasury Market Conference to argue that regulators and market infrastructure must be ready for what he called “mass tokenization.” His message was not that every market should be moved onto a blockchain tomorrow. It was that the regulatory system has to prepare for technology that is already moving from experiments into live products.

In his official keynote, the CFTC chair said the coming decade could bring more change to financial markets than the previous several decades combined. He pointed to blockchain, artificial intelligence, tokenization and new forms of trading as forces that will test rules designed for a different market structure.

Selig said the agency wants legacy frameworks tailored so those technologies can be adopted at scale without abandoning market-integrity rules. He identified tokenized real-world assets as one of the most important developments and argued that high-quality tokenized collateral could make liquidity more dynamic and markets more resilient.

The speech described near-instant settlement and real-time movement of collateral among clearinghouses, intermediaries and end users as practical benefits. It also connected the tokenization push to stablecoin use in derivatives markets and to coordination between the CFTC and SEC on clearing and margin systems.

Those details make the proposal broader than putting conventional assets on a blockchain. The agency is considering how trading, settlement, collateral and oversight would operate together when markets stay open longer and financial infrastructure becomes more programmable.

The new frontier of finance isn't on the horizon. It's here.

As our markets evolve at warp speed, the @CFTC is upgrading its rules and regulations to prepare for the era of onchain systems, mass tokenization, 24/7 trading, and agentic finance. pic.twitter.com/om6XmfycIZ

— Mike Selig (@ChairmanSelig) September 23, 2026

Tokenization changes more than the trading screen. Tokenization can put a digital representation of a real-world asset on programmable infrastructure.

The practical promise is faster settlement, collateral that can move more efficiently, and markets that operate outside traditional business hours. The difficult questions concern custody, investor rights, market integrity, interoperability and who remains liable when a token and its underlying asset diverge.

Cointelegraph connected Selig’s remarks with parallel work at the Securities and Exchange Commission on tokenized securities. That broader context matters because the CFTC and SEC oversee different pieces of the U.S. market.

A workable onchain market cannot depend on two agencies using incompatible definitions or operating assumptions.

The report said the SEC had created a temporary Innovation Exemption that allows eligible platforms to offer tokenized versions of U.S.-listed stocks under specified conditions. The framework includes safeguards and requires issuer authorization before a platform offers a tokenized version of a company’s shares.

It also placed the announcement against the failure of a broader crypto market-structure bill to advance in the Senate. That leaves the agencies moving through their existing authorities while Congress has not supplied one comprehensive statutory framework.

On the CFTC side, the agency has sought input on continuous trading and on wider use of stablecoins as collateral. Those are separate policy tracks, but together they show regulators working through the operational pieces of onchain markets rather than treating tokenization as a single product category.

Selig also discussed 24/7 trading. Crypto markets already trade continuously, but extending that model to other regulated products raises operational questions.

Clearing, surveillance, risk management and customer support all have to work when there is no conventional closing bell.

The SEC is making the same debate concrete. The SEC’s Division of Trading and Markets has likewise framed tokenization as a market-development issue rather than a purely partisan slogan.

Director Jamie Selway said in a Bloomberg interview that tokenization and crypto had become politicized, but successful development of the markets should be able to attract bipartisan support.

Jamie Selway (SEC Director, Division of Trading & Markets) on @BloombergTV

"Tokenization & crypto have been politicized recently. But it's not naturally a politicized function . . . Success of the country in terms of developing these markets should have good bipartisan support." pic.twitter.com/zeFtQbI6wb

— U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (@SECGov) September 22, 2026

The regulatory direction is clearer than the final rulebook. Agencies are signaling that tokenized trading, stablecoin collateral and onchain settlement belong inside the future of regulated finance. The remaining work is defining the protections and responsibilities that make those systems durable rather than merely fast.

For crypto markets, that is the real significance of Selig’s remarks. The debate is shifting away from whether tokenization exists and toward how existing market rules should apply when assets, collateral and trading venues become programmable.

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