CFTC’s Caroline Pham says agency can regulate nearly all commodities

Caroline D. Pham has a short list of things the Commodity Futures Trading Commission cannot regulate. It includes onions and movie box office receipts. Almost everything else, she argues, falls under the agency’s reach. That includes digital assets, and she says it works without Congress passing a new law. In an interview on October 12, 2026, the former acting chairman of the CFTC said the Commodity Exchange Act gives the agency jurisdiction over virtually every commodity. She also backed the agency’s recent crypto proposals. Pham called them “absolutely the kind of protection” that US retail crypto traders need. The CFTC is in the middle of writing rules for how everyday Americans trade crypto, including with borrowed money. The onion exception Pham’s argument rests on the Commodity Exchange Act, or CEA. That law is the CFTC’s founding rulebook. Her reading is broad. In her view, the statute covers almost all commodities, with onions and movie box office receipts carved out. If something isn’t on that very short exclusion list, the CFTC can oversee it. What the CFTC has actually proposed The agency issued an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking around October 5, 2026. It focuses...