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The 
Hyperliquid Policy Center (HPC) and the 
Phantom team filed a joint comment letter with the CFTC today, urging the agency to update rules that currently keep American users walled off from onchain derivatives markets.
What's the Scoop?
- The opening: The filing responds to a CFTC request for information issued in June under Executive Order 14405, which asked which of the agency's rules unduly impede fintech firms from partnering with regulated institutions. HPC and Phantom's answer amounts to a three-part roadmap for bringing onchain markets under CFTC oversight.
- The main thrust: The letter's central argument is that writing software isn't the same as running a financial services business, a line the CFTC has long respected offchain, where engineers build the matching engines that regulated exchanges deploy without themselves registering. The groups want the agency to confirm that publishing onchain protocol code, on its own, doesn't trigger registration either.
- Registrants go onchain: The second ask is guidance letting the CFTC's own registrants, like exchanges and clearinghouses, perform their regulated functions using onchain infrastructure, covering thorny areas like fund segregation and recordkeeping. Notably, the letter argues self-custody plus transparent code can meet or exceed the protections legacy custodial rules were written to provide.
- Codifying Phantom's letter: In March, the CFTC granted Phantom no-action relief confirming its non-custodial wallet isn't an introducing broker. The filing asks the agency to turn that one-off relief into a formal rule covering every similarly situated firm.
