Policy | March 12, 2026

Washington Tries to Act Like One Regulator

The SEC and CFTC still do not agree on everything. The coordination pact does something smaller and more useful. It reduces the chance that crypto firms will have to build against two different federal maps at once.

The SEC and CFTC signed a memorandum of understanding on digital assets this week. Crypto firms may hear fewer conflicting answers from two agencies looking at the same market through different statutes.

The pact covers rulemaking, supervision, and enforcement. Congress still controls the deeper architecture, so classification fights are not disappearing. Even so, this is a real shift in posture. Washington is trying to behave less like two adjacent jurisdictions and more like one state with slightly better coordination.