The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has issued a formal request for public comment on compute derivatives contracts. Announced on August 19, the initiative represents the regulator's move toward overseeing markets that price the computing power utilized in artificial intelligence.
The regulatory agency is seeking feedback on several areas, including the size and liquidity of compute cash markets, manipulation concerns, customer protection, and perpetual compute futures. Public comments will be accepted for 60 days following the publication of the notice in the Federal Register, with the agency inviting input on all aspects of compute markets.
Michael Selig emphasized the significance of the move in the context of international competition for AI capacity, stating that the request for comment serves as an initial step toward establishing clear rules for American compute markets. Selig described compute as a vital commodity for the intelligence economy, comparing it to industrial-era commodities standardized by American exchanges.
Speaking at a White House gathering featuring President Donald Trump and crypto executives, Selig noted his collaboration with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to position the United States as a global compute leader, referring to compute as digital oil.
Meanwhile, private sector exchanges are advancing independently. Pending regulatory review, CME Group and Silicon Data plan to list two contracts on October 5. These contracts will track indexes measuring hourly GPU rental costs, specifically representing a month's worth of rent for the Nvidia H100 and the next-generation Nvidia Blackwell B200 chips.
The regulatory development holds significance for cryptocurrency firms that sell computing capacity, as several public miners, such as MARA and CleanSpark, have transitioned toward generating revenue from AI hosting.
