TD Cowen warns CFTC crypto rules may not survive past the 2028 election
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s new framework for leveraged crypto trading may not be finalized before the 2028 presidential election, and TD Cowen analysts say that timing puts the whole effort at risk.
Jaret Seiberg, a managing director at TD Cowen’s Washington Research Group, laid out the warning in a note dated October 12, 2026. “Time is running out,” he wrote. In his view, the agency at best delivers a formal proposal in late Q1 2027 or early Q2 2027, and finalizing the rule could stretch into early 2028. A rule finished that close to an election can be rewritten or scrapped by the next administration and a new slate of commissioners, the analysts argued, because agency rules lack the durability of a law passed by Congress.
The warning lands on a rulemaking that began on October 5, 2026, when the CFTC issued an advance notice of proposed rulemaking, a non-binding request for public input ahead of any formal rule. The notice asks for comment on a federal framework for retail crypto transactions involving leverage, margin or financing, an area the agency has never regulated through a dedicated federal lane.
Why the deadline matters
The CFTC moved after the Clarity Act, the market structure bill that would have handed the agency authority over spot crypto trading, stalled in the Senate in September 2026. Chairman Michael Selig has described the agency’s approach as a temporary solution meant to provide oversight while legislative efforts stay stuck, a framing TD Cowen reads as a concession that rulemaking alone cannot settle the industry’s regulatory status.
The analysts see no clean way out of the timing squeeze. Rushing the rule to beat the election raises the risk a judge blocks it on procedural grounds, Seiberg wrote, and even a careful process invites legal challenges that could run past 2028. In TD Cowen’s assessment, only legislation gives the framework a stable footing.
The comment period, set to run 60 days once the notice appears in the Federal Register, has not yet started. No publication date has been announced.
