The CFTC is confronting an expanding crypto and prediction-market sector with fewer staff and sharply reduced enforcement activity, raising questions about its capacity to police markets where hundreds of billions of dollars are traded each week.
By the end of 2025, the agency had 21% fewer employees than its average staffing over the previous decade, according to NPR’s October 8 report, which cited Office of Personnel Management data. CFTC enforcement actions in 2025 were nearly 80% below the annual average for the prior decade, based on the agency’s annual reports.
Staffing fell 22% between January 2024 and January 2025. The contraction comes as the CFTC is expected to develop rules for crypto and prediction markets, leaving the agency to manage new responsibilities with fewer people and a reduced enforcement record.
The figures point to an oversight-capacity concern, not proof that any particular company has broken the law or that the regulator has lost its authority. During 2026, the CFTC saw a slight staffing uptick; it told NPR it was on track to hire roughly 100 employees in mission-critical areas by the end of the year.
Enforcement shifts as markets grow
Before crypto and prediction markets expanded, the CFTC focused largely on traditional derivatives, including grain and stock futures. Under the Biden administration, it brought enforcement cases against cryptocurrency companies Gemini, Mirror Trading, Voyager, Celsius and FTX, as well as the crypto prediction market Polymarket, NPR reported.
Since President Donald Trump took office, the agency has rolled back enforcement actions against Gemini, Celsius and FTX. Former CFTC enforcement lawyer Joe Konizeski told NPR that crypto cases and matters he viewed as marginally related to crypto were closed after a statement he attributed to then-acting chair Caroline Pham; that account has not been independently established here.
Pham left the CFTC in December 2025 and later became MoonPay’s chief legal and administrative officer. NPR reported that she did not respond to its request for comment on whether she had given the crypto industry preferential treatment.
The staffing decline has also affected cases outside crypto, according to Konizeski, who said the agency dismissed a foreign-exchange fraud case against WorldWideMarkets Inc. amid reduced staffing. The company had been accused of defrauding users of millions of dollars, the report said.
The CFTC’s response and expanding workload
CFTC spokesman Zach Fulton told NPR the agency remained committed to integrity and responsible innovation in U.S. derivatives markets, and credited staff who continue to support that work. He also said some employees had chosen to leave public service in recent years and that the agency would keep working to attract and retain talent.
The CFTC did not directly address NPR’s report that the Government Accountability Office is investigating its workforce reduction. Polymarket and Kalshi did not respond to NPR’s requests for comment on allegations by Konizeski that their advertising used deceptive means to attract young men.
Chairman Michael Selig has promoted rulemaking for crypto and prediction markets and argued that the United States should lead in those technologies. He is the sole member of a commission normally made up of five members, NPR reported; former CFTC director Brian Young said additional staff are needed to write rules and process applications as digital-asset trading and prediction markets grow.
GAO probe set to begin in December
The GAO is gathering staff and resources for an investigation into the CFTC’s workforce reduction and plans to initiate the probe in December 2026. Sen. Elizabeth Warren requested a federal investigation into agency staffing and fraud enforcement in July.
Warren has said Congress could use investigations, subpoenas and its control over agency funding to examine the issue. Those are options she has described, not announced actions; meanwhile, the CFTC’s stated plan to hire roughly 100 employees by the end of 2026 will be a key test of whether its capacity can catch up with its expanding remit.
The post CFTC staffing cuts test regulator as crypto markets expand appeared first on ReadWrite.
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This articles is written by : Nermeen Nabil Khear Abdelmalak
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