CFTC crypto oversight shifts after Behnam departure

The CFTC lost 21% of its staff by the end of 2025, a drop that mirrors the nearly 80% decline in enforcement actions compared to the previous decade. Michael Selig now sits as the sole commissioner, holding unchallenged power over an agency that is 16% below its decade-average workforce. This structural vacuum leaves the regulator struggling to process the surge in prediction market applications while simultaneously rolling back aggressive enforcement against major crypto firms.

A purge of critics and a new leadership team

Senior officials who questioned the operations of Crypto.com, Polymarket, and Gemini were demoted, investigated, or pushed out during 2025 under acting chair Caroline Pham. Pham’s office launched investigations into three key figures: enforcement division chief counsel Gretchen Lowe, deputy director Manal Sultan, and chief trial attorney K. Brent Tomer. By Christmas, Sultan and Tomer were placed on leave and barred from the office, while Lowe chose to resign without ever being told why they deserved such treatment. Two other trial attorneys handling crypto cases faced demotions, signaling a clear message to "bad actors" that the agency was no longer coming after them.

Pham left the CFTC in December 2025 to become the chief legal and administrative officer at MoonPay, a cryptocurrency company that has partnered with Polymarket. Her senior counsel, Brigitte Weyls, moved to work as general counsel for Gemini’s prediction market offshoot, Gemini Titan. These departures occurred just as Selig began appointing his own senior staff between January and March 2026. On January 26, Alex Titus joined as Chief Advisor to the Chairman, having previously served as Chief of Staff at the White House Council of Economic Advisers. Four more appointments followed on February 23, including Brooke Nethercott as Director of Public Affairs and Meghan Tente as Senior Advisor. Then, on March 2, Selig named David I. Miller as Director of Enforcement, a critical role given the agency’s reduced capacity to police fraudulent behavior in digital asset markets.

Regulatory expansion amid staffing shortages

Selig argues that the U.S. needs to "dominate" new financial technologies and write the rules that define the next generation of markets. He recently announced that the CFTC will move ahead with making its own rules without congressional input, aiming to incorporate crypto asset transactions into a uniform national regulatory framework. However, former CFTC director Brian Young notes that this massive rulemaking effort requires significant staffing that the agency simply does not have. The CFTC greenlit six prediction markets in 2025, triple the average annual rate, and has authorized another six this year with 18 applications still pending.

The workload continues to grow even as the agency struggles to execute existing mandates. A former CFTC employee described colleagues as "dying" from the strain of understaffing, particularly when trying to implement the 2025 executive order on cryptocurrency. Inspector General Christopher Skinner warned in a recent report that human capital management must be a top priority to meet the expanding regulatory landscape. Meanwhile, the Government Accountability Office is investigating the workforce reduction, following a request from Sen. Elizabeth Warren who questioned whether the watchdog is actually doing its job or has been "locked up somewhere back in the barn." The agency claims it is on track to hire roughly 100 employees in mission-critical areas by the end of 2026, but currently has only seven full-time positions open. Can a one-man commission effectively regulate a market where hundreds of billions are traded each week?