This is a very significant letter in that it allows an unregistered entity to share in transaction revenue, provided that the unregistered entity properly confines the scope of its activities and fulfills a number of other process conditions. If the principle is applied more broadly, in the securities markets as well as in CFTC-regulated markets, it could have a meaningful impact on the way in which technology businesses are paid when providing support services with respect to financial…

This amendment would completely undo the first big mistake of former SEC Chair Gensler's tenure at the SEC, which was to proclaim that Rule 15c2-11, which had for half a century applied only to equities, applied equally to debt securities. The proclamation was issued without any consideration of whether the markets for debt securities and for equity securities might be quite different (they are) and thus a rule that worked in equities might not be appropriate, at least without revision, for…

While securities regulation has always allowed for state enforcement authority, CFTC regulation and enforcement have generally been federal only. 

The development of prediction markets and of digital commodities, both of which may be primarily CFTC-regulated, will lead to jurisdictional battles between the CFTC and state regulators. Will the winner of the battles be decided by the courts (federal or state?) or by Congress? 

It is simply remarkable that a new mandate with such extraordinary impact on the financial markets could have been adopted with so little study and on such a fast timetable, with so few of the necessary market technology and operational infrastructure pieces in place.  

While the new SEC pushed back the timetable a bit, and addressed some of the burdens (e.g, mixed CUSIP), a lot of uncertainty as to market acceptance remains.  The costs of failure seem much greater than…