House Ways and Means Committee Advances Crypto Tax Legislation as CFTC Proposes Prediction Market Rules

CoinDesk’s “State of Crypto” newsletter says summer “hasn’t started yet and won’t for another week,” while New York is “over 90°F” and the House Ways and Means Committee held a hearing to work through crypto tax legislation.

“Technically speaking, summer hasn't started yet and won't for another week”

@coindesk

In the same CoinDesk account, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission put out a proposal for regulating prediction markets, and former CFTC and Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler filed an amicus brief in lawsuits around prediction markets.

@coindesk

CoinDesk also says Sam Bankman-Fried’s appeal was rejected by an appellate court panel, after a Second Circuit Court of Appeals panel found District Judge Lewis Kaplan “did not overreach his role or make mistakes” in overseeing Bankman-Fried’s criminal trial.

The CFTC’s prediction-market proposal is framed in Event Horizon’s roundup as a “durable, transparent framework” that aims to protect “the integrity of our regulated markets” without blocking “responsible innovation.”

Event Horizon’s roundup says the proposed CFTC rules would treat “sports events” as “mostly fine” for prediction markets, while pointing to “some exceptions” for certain contract types.

It quotes the CFTC’s view that it “preliminarily finds that certain characteristics of event contracts involving sports activities would reduce the basis for finding that the event contracts are contrary to the public interest.”

Event Horizon

Event Horizon also highlights specific categories the CFTC preliminarily believes raise “serious public interest concerns,” including “Player injury contracts” and “Officiating outcome contracts.”

In the CoinDesk newsletter, the CFTC’s work on prediction markets is also tied to how the agency would define gaming for determining which prediction market contracts fall under its purview and which would not meet the bar for being a federally regulated swap product.

CoinDesk says the House Ways and Means Committee hearing on digital asset tax bills was “pretty straightforward,” with members asking substantive questions about how crypto taxes might work and what holes exist in current tax policy.

“Technically speaking, summer hasn't started yet and won't for another week”

CoinDesk

The newsletter adds that crypto taxes are the “next big issue” after a “market structure bill,” and it says there is “a lot of work to be done” before crypto tax legislation can proceed through a markup and to the House floor.

Britannica’s overview places U.S. regulation in a broader timeline, saying Congress made progress in 2025 toward establishing federal oversight of stablecoins and digital asset markets, including the GENIUS Act signed into law.

Britannica further says the GENIUS Act is “the first federal law in the United States to establish clear rules for stablecoin issuance,” defining payment stablecoins as digital assets pegged to the dollar and requiring issuers to maintain “full reserve backing.”