CME Group CEO Terry Duffy told the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) it clears contracts that traders can rig. Chairman Michael Selig cut him off and called the claim fake news.

The exchange happened Thursday in Washington, at the first meeting of the CFTC’s Innovation Advisory Committee. Duffy runs the largest futures exchange in the world. Selig regulates it.

2,500 Filings and Zero Objections

Selig built the 35-member committee in February. Its roster includes the chief executives of Kalshi, Polymarket and DraftKings. Thursday’s agenda covered crypto, artificial intelligence and event contracts.

Duffy used his turn to attack the last one.

Roughly 2,500 self-certifications have landed at the agency since January 2025, he said. None were opposed.

Self-certification is the fast lane. An exchange files a contract, attests that it follows the law, and lists it. Nobody has to approve it.

Duffy said some of those filings break core principle 3. That rule bars any contract that traders can readily manipulate.

There is a structural reason few filings get challenged. Selig is the only sitting commissioner at the CFTC. Four of the agency’s five seats are empty.

“We’re not a bunch of carnival barkers at a circus. We are running the most envious markets in the world in the United States of America.”

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Selig Calls It Fake News, But The Record Is Messier

Duffy raised two cases.

In the first, a Fort Bragg soldier named Gannon Van Dyke turned $33,034 into $409,881 on Polymarket. He bet on whether US forces would enter Venezuela. He also held classified details of the raid that captured Nicolás Maduro. Prosecutors charged him in April.

In the second, Trump’s teleprompter operator Gabriel Perez cleared more than $100,000 on Kalshi. He traded on what the president would say. Investigators found bets on more than a dozen speeches.

Selig cut in before Duffy finished.

“…those products are not listed in the United States. They never were. This occurred offshore, and that’s fake news.”

Duffy called that a cute comment. He granted that the Maduro market was Polymarket’s, which trades offshore.

The teleprompter case is different. Those trades ran on Kalshi, an exchange the CFTC itself designates and oversees. Kalshi’s own surveillance team flagged the activity and reported it to the agency.

So one example landed offshore. The other did not.

Kalshi Trades Compute Today. CME Waits for October.

Duffy then moved to timing, and the complaint got sharper.

Kalshi already runs markets on the cost of renting Nvidia chips. It launched them in July.

CME wants in on the same trade. On August 11 it said it would list rental futures for Nvidia H100 and B200 chips. Its partner is Silicon Data, a firm backed by trading house DRW. Target date, October 5, pending review.

Then the agency opened a consultation. On August 19 it asked the public to comment on compute derivatives for 60 days.

Count the days. A 60-day window starting from Federal Register publication closes after October 5.

DRW founder Don Wilson, also on the committee, asked why compute needed 60 days at all.

Duffy added a second detail. Cantor Fitzgerald had opened institutional trading in Kalshi contracts hours earlier. “Let’s call that a coincidence,” he said.

Cantor’s announcement covered event contracts broadly and never mentioned compute.

The Man Attacking Self-Certification Once Used It

Duffy’s frustration is not abstract. His own filings keep stalling.

In July the agency froze CME’s 24-hour crude oil contract while a rulemaking ran. Selig called the timing wholly inappropriate. That comment period closes on August 26.

CME has already gone to court. On June 18 it sued the CFTC over Kalshi’s Bitcoin perpetual contract, arguing the agency rubberstamped Kalshi’s reasoning. Those perps cleared $1 billion in volume in their first week.

Duffy also pressed on offshore venues. Traders in the US cannot legally touch them, he said, yet they get there anyway. He asked what the commission is doing to “police everybody’s VPN.”

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He named Hyperliquid. President Donald Trump had floated bringing Hyperliquid onshore at a White House crypto summit the previous day.

One point cuts against Duffy. CME self-certified its own Bitcoin futures in December 2017, using the same fast lane he now calls dangerous. Duffy signed the announcement.

He closed on 2008. Bad behavior in finance does not cost the industry one step, he said. It costs 20, and the rebuild takes years.

Duffy hands the CEO job to Lynne Fitzpatrick in March 2027. The committee he was addressing cannot write rules. Selig can, alone, and two of his clocks run out within weeks.

Source: BeInCrypto