The CFTC's week in two documents: Staff Letter 26-25 for 'passive software' providers, and a crypto rulemaking package sent to the White House on 17 September

Regulators publish two kinds of text: the ones that decide something now, and the ones that announce a process. On 17 September 2026 the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission produced one of each. A staff no-action letter, numbered 26-25, took effect on publication for a defined class of software providers. A rulemaking item with a long name, "Regulation Crypto Asset Transactions and Regulation Crypto Asset Markets," was logged the same day at the White House office that reviews federal regulations before they are published. This article reads both, and keeps them apart, because they do different things.

The CFTC's press release 9300-26, dated 17 September 2026, is titled "CFTC Staff Issues No-Action Position to Providers of Passive Software." It states that the Market Participants Division "announced it has issued a no-action position for the benefit of providers of passive software," and that the position "is similar to that provided in Staff Letter 26-09 and now is broadly available to such providers."

The mechanism is described precisely. The letter states that, subject to specified conditions, the Division "will not recommend the Commission take enforcement action against any such provider or their relevant personnel for failure to register as an introducing broker or associated person of an introducing broker." The relief applies, in the release's words, "solely in relation to their provision and marketing of software to facilitate trading by the provider's users with registered futures commission merchants, introducing brokers, and designated contract markets."

A no-action letter is a staff position, not a rule. It says what the staff will not recommend; it does not amend the Commodity Exchange Act, and the letter itself is addressed to registration requirements under sections 4d(g) and 4k(1) of that Act.

The letter does not offer a one-line definition of passive software. It describes what the provider does, and calls these the covered activities. The provider may "develop and distribute front-end interface software for Users to review market data and aggregate position information, view information about product offerings, and submit orders." Its role in orders is bounded: the provider's "involvement in order submission will be limited to providing software on the User's device, which enables the User to transmit its orders directly to Registrants," and "the PSP will not have any affirmative involvement with any particular orders." The summary sentence is that the software "would serve only to passively enable Users to transact in Commission-regulated derivatives products."

Three prohibitions define the boundary of the category. The provider may not "hold, control, or take into custody User assets"; may not "generate express 'buy' or 'sell' signals"; and may not "exercise discretion with respect to the routing or execution of User orders." The second of these is the one that separates an interface from an adviser: the letter's relief is available to software that shows data and carries orders, not to software that tells the user what to do.

The letter enumerates ten conditions for the position to apply. In compressed form, as the letter lists them: the provider, its principals and soliciting personnel must not be subject to statutory disqualification without a Division waiver; the provider must disclose its relationship with the registrants it works with, addressing potential conflicts; it must provide risk disclosure statements consistent with Commission Regulation 1.55(b); users must be onboarded as direct members of designated contract markets or as customers of futures commission merchants or introducing brokers, with the ability to access those registrants independently; the provider must adopt policies for compliance with Commission and NFA rules on communications and marketing; it may not run advertising that would require NFA pre-approval under NFA Compliance Rule 2-29; it must execute a written undertaking establishing joint and several liability with each registrant; it must keep records consistent with Commission Regulation 1.31; it must notify the Division if it becomes insolvent or enters bankruptcy; and it must file a notice with the Division agreeing to satisfy the conditions and consenting to the Commission's jurisdiction.

The seventh condition, joint and several liability with each registrant, is the one that gives the relief its weight. The provider is not registered, but it is not outside the liability structure either.

The letter extends a position first granted in CFTC Staff Letter 26-09, dated 17 March 2026, which was issued to a single company, Phantom Technologies, Inc. Letter 26-25 states that the Division "has received inquiries from other similarly situated providers" and makes substantially the same terms available to the class. This is the ordinary life cycle of a no-action position: one firm asks, the staff answers, other firms ask for the same, and the staff generalises. For the crypto sector the relevance is that the class of "passive software providers" includes the front-end applications through which users reach regulated derivatives, and the letter now states, for that whole class, what such an application may and may not do.

The second document is not a rule and not a letter. It is a record in the public database of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, the division of the Office of Management and Budget that reviews federal regulations under Executive Order 12866 before they are published. The record, reference number 1537870, reads: title "Regulation Crypto Asset Transactions and Regulation Crypto Asset Markets"; agency CFTC; RIN 3038-AF80; stage "Prerule"; received 17 September 2026; legal deadline "None"; economically significant "No." No abstract is provided.

What can be said from this record is limited, and we say only that. The CFTC has submitted something under this title for review; its stage is prerule, which in the federal rulemaking vocabulary precedes a proposed rule; the review has no statutory deadline; and the text is not public. Trade reporting on 18 September, including CoinDesk, connected the submission to the stalling of the Clarity Act in Congress; that is a reading of the timing, and the OIRA record itself says nothing about Congress. The contents of the package will be knowable when, and if, it is published as a proposal.

They do not change what any particular crypto asset is, and they do not concern spot markets outside the Commission's derivatives remit. Letter 26-25 relieves a registration requirement for a narrow, conditioned class of software; it does not authorise custody, advice or discretionary execution by that class, and it says so in three prohibitions. The OIRA record states that a review has begun; it states nothing about the outcome.

Readers who want the distinction between a derivatives venue, a broker and an interface explained from first principles will find the vocabulary in the Kripto Akadémia. Our sourced daily data on the underlying crypto assets is on the Market Observation page, timestamped and without trading instruction. Longer readings of regulatory texts are collected in The Analyst Room, and the team is introduced on the About page.

CFTC press release 9300-26, "CFTC Staff Issues No-Action Position to Providers of Passive Software," 17 September 2026, cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/9300-26. CFTC Staff Letter No. 26-25, 17 September 2026, cftc.gov/csl/26-25/download. Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, EO 12866 regulatory review record, reginfo.gov/public/do/eoDetails?rrid=1537870 (RIN 3038-AF80, received 17 September 2026). Gibson Dunn, "Derivatives, Legislative and Regulatory Weekly Update (September 18, 2026)" (secondary). CoinDesk, "CFTC sends crypto rules to White House to review as Congress stalls on Clarity Act," 18 September 2026 (secondary).

Educational content. Not investment advice. This article describes regulatory documents; it contains no instruction to buy, sell or hold any asset.