The two major financial regulatory agencies in the United States, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), announced a coordinated event. The meeting, scheduled for Tuesday, January 27, 2026, aims to harmonize oversight of Bitcoin (BTC) and cryptocurrencies to support U.S. leadership in the digital asset space.
SEC Chairman Paul Atkins and CFTC Chairman Michael Selig will participate in the public session, which will be held from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. local time at CFTC headquarters in Washington. The event, titled “SEC-CFTC Harmonization: America’s Financial Leadership in the Cryptocurrency Era,” follows official announcements from both agencies. Represents a step towards further cooperation after years of disagreements Regarding jurisdiction over crypto assets.
“For too long, market participants have been forced to navigate an inconsistently designed regulatory environment with unclear application boundaries and based solely on outdated jurisdictional silos,” Atkins and Selig said in a joint statement posted on the agencies’ websites.
The contents of the discussion are as follows. Important division of responsibility between the two institutionsoverlapping regulations and strategies to provide more clarity to the market.
3pm that day. local time, the Senate Agriculture Committee will hold a debate and markup session on the Crypto Asset Market Structure Bill. Commission Chairman John Boozman announced the date for moving forward with legislative text that defines the authority between the CFTC and the SEC.
Possible pivot towards regulatory cooperation
The activities scheduled for January 27 signal a focus on cooperation between the SEC and the CFTC, which have maintained divergent interpretations. While the SEC classifies many tokens as securities, the CFTC considers them to be commodities.
As reported by CriptoNoticias, in March 2024, the CFTC strengthened its position in its lawsuit against the KuCoin exchange by classifying Ethereum and Litecoin as commodities, demonstrating the overlapping jurisdiction of both agencies. These differences have created regulatory uncertainty in this area And there are growing calls for greater clarity through legislation and cooperation between organizations.
The current story of cooperation coincides with announcements by both agencies regarding President Donald Trump’s vision to position the United States as a global leader in Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. This development comes while other jurisdictions, such as the European Union with its MiCA (Crypto Asset Market Regulation) framework, are harmonizing regulations with rules that will be gradually applied to issuers and providers in all member states.
Integrated agency proposal
Discussions about the need for harmonized regulation are not new. In December 2024, attorney and former Senate candidate John E. Deaton proposed a merger between the SEC and CFTC.
Its central discussion was the elimination of duplication and the reduction of uncertainty in the digital asset sector.
The proposed merger between the SEC and the CFTC, which Mr. Deaton introduced in December 2024, received no progress or formal action in the following months.
Despite support from people such as Perianne Bolling, who is considered a key figure in the lobby for clear regulation of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in Washington, it was left without any concrete follow-up in the legislative or administrative spheres.
In any case, the current approach focuses on defining: Improving accuracy in SEC and CFTC jurisdiction areasthrough direct cooperation and legislative advances that clarify roles without eliminating independent institutions.
The Jan. 27 event and the Senate Agriculture Committee’s markup session coincide with a critical time for the sector, where regulatory harmonization has the potential to reduce compliance costs, foster U.S. innovation, and respond to competitive pressures from unified frameworks such as the European Union.
While these measures do not amount to a systemic merger, they aim to provide the clarity that the market has long sought, in line with the current administration’s stated goals.