The CFTC named five senior advisors to its Innovation Task Force on April 10, setting up a formal rule-writing process for crypto assets, artificial intelligence, and prediction markets under Chairman Michael S. Selig.
The five advisors: Hank Balaban, formerly of Latham & Watkins’ Digital Asset and Emerging Companies practice groups; Sam Canavos, a former Patomak Global Partners consultant who advised firms on innovative-technology regulation; Eugene Gonzalez IV, formerly of Sidley Austin’s Blockchain and FinTech practice; and two internal CFTC staff, Mark Fajfar from the Office of the General Counsel and Dina Moussa from the Market Participants Division. The group is led by Michael J. Passalacqua, senior adviser to Selig.
The ITF’s mandate spans three areas where the CFTC’s rules haven’t kept pace: blockchain and crypto, AI and autonomous systems, and prediction markets and event contracts. Selig’s framing, “clear rules of the road,” suggests the agency is moving toward bright-line guidance rather than relying on case-by-case enforcement.
That’s the key shift. Firms building derivatives products in these categories don’t have formal CFTC guidance today. By placing private-sector practitioners, lawyers who’ve sat across the table from firms that’ll soon be regulated, inside the ITF, the CFTC is signaling it won’t write these rules in a vacuum.
The ITF’s formation was announced in March; seat assignments were filled Friday. The CFTC’s Innovation Tracker, launched April 9, is now live. There’s no published deadline for when the ITF will deliver its first framework.
James Okafor