As crypto and prediction markets expand, their regulator shrinks
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Reported by NPR. The paragraphs below are the opening of that article, reproduced word for word — not a summary, and not the whole piece.
President Donald Trump shakes hands with Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Chairman Michael Selig during a meeting with technology leaders in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Wednesday, Aug. 19, 2026, in Washington. Jacquelyn Martin/Associated Press hide caption
Trump-era staff reductions have significantly hampered enforcement at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and its ability to regulate burgeoning new prediction and cryptocurrency markets, where hundreds of billions are traded each week.
The CFTC started hemorrhaging staff soon after President Trump won the 2024 election. This was not a coincidence, according to Jeff Le Riche, who worked as a CFTC enforcement lawyer between 2005 and 2025.
"The Trump administration had run partially on a platform that it would be friendlier to the crypto industry," Le Riche said.
Leading up to the 2024 election, the CFTC under the Biden administration had leveled enforcement cases against cryptocurrency companies such as Gemini, Mirror Trading, Voyager, Celsius and FTX for fraud. It did the same against the crypto prediction market Polymarket .
After President Trump's inauguration, "in order to show results to that industry, some people were punished for bringing those cases," Le Riche continued. "The end result was that a lot of the people that worked on those cases either left or were forced out."
Continue reading at NPR →Quoted in This Article
“The Trump administration had run partially on a platform that it would be friendlier to the crypto industry,”
“in order to show results to that industry, some people were punished for bringing those cases,”
“It castrated the enforcement team,”