Chairman Selig's new Innovation Advisory Committee reads like a who's-who of the companies the agency is about to oversee — and he's the only commissioner in the building.
The people most likely to be regulated by the CFTC's expanding crypto authority are now formally advising the agency on how that regulation should work. Today, Chairman Michael Selig announced the 35-member Innovation Advisory Committee, and the roster tells you everything you need to know about where American derivatives regulation is headed: Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse, Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev, Uniswap Labs CEO Hayden Adams, and Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan all have seats at the table. So do the CEOs of Kalshi, Kraken, Gemini, Crypto.com, Solana Labs, Chainlink Labs, Grayscale, and Blockchain.com.
This isn't a listening tour. It's a policy architecture session — and the architects are the same firms that stand to gain the most from the rules it produces.
What the CFTC Actually Announced
The IAC replaces the old Technology Advisory Committee and absorbs many of the charter members from former Acting Chair Caroline Pham's CEO Innovation Council, which she stood up in late 2025 before Selig took the chair on December 22. The committee's mandate, per the CFTC's release, is to advise on "how breakthrough innovations, such as artificial intelligence and blockchain technologies, are transforming markets." Selig framed it as essential to building "clear rules of the road for the Golden Age of American Financial Markets."
The 35 members break into three rough camps. Traditional exchange and clearing executives — Terry Duffy at CME Group, Adena Friedman at Nasdaq, Jeff Sprecher at Intercontinental Exchange, Craig Donohue at Cboe Global Markets, Frank LaSalla at DTCC — represent the incumbents. Crypto-native firms — Armstrong, Garlinghouse, Tenev, Adams, Tyler Winklevoss at Gemini, Arjun Sethi at Kraken, Kris Marszalek at Crypto.com, Peter Smith at Blockchain.com, Nathan McCauley at Anchorage Digital, Peter Mintzberg at Grayscale — represent the industry that's about to fall squarely under the CFTC's jurisdiction once market structure legislation passes. And prediction market operators — Coplan at Polymarket, Tarek Mansour at Kalshi, Christian Genetski at FanDuel, Jason Robins at DraftKings — represent the sector where the CFTC is actively deciding what counts as a regulated derivative and what counts as a sports bet.
Two academics round out the list: Professor Harry Crane and Professor Carla Reyes. Two out of 35. The committee also includes a16z Crypto's Chris Dixon, Framework Ventures' Vance Spencer, and Paradigm's Alana Palmedo from the investment side, plus industry group heads Walt Lukken at FIA and Scott O'Malia at ISDA.
