The agency responsible for policing hundreds of billions of dollars in weekly crypto and prediction market trading now has about a fifth fewer staffers than its decade average and has brought nearly 80% fewer enforcement actions. According to a former CFTC enforcement lawyer, this was not an accident. It was a gift to the industry.
The Numbers Are Almost Funny
Start with the staffing. By the end of 2025, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission had 21% fewer people on payroll than its previous 10-year average, according to Office of Personnel Management data cited by NPR. Between January 2024 and January 2025 alone, headcount fell 22%.
Now the enforcement side. The agency brought nearly 80% fewer enforcement actions in 2025 than its annual average over the previous decade, according to its own annual reports.
So the staff shrank by about a fifth and the enforcement shrank by about four-fifths. Somebody wasn't just trimming the fat. Somebody went after the muscle.
Punished for Doing Their Jobs
Jeff Le Rich spent 20 years as a CFTC enforcement lawyer, from 2005 to 2025. He says the exodus began right after Trump won the 2024 election, and he does not think that was a coincidence. "The Trump administration had run partially on a platform that it would be friendlier to the crypto industry," he said.
Under Biden, the agency had brought fraud cases against Gemini, Mirror Trading, Voyager, Celsius and FTX. It went after the crypto prediction market Polymarket too. Le Rich says that after the inauguration, "in order to show results to that industry, some people were punished for bringing those cases."
The people who built the cases either left or got pushed out. "It castrated the enforcement team," Le Rich said. Many of those targeted were high-performing attorneys who had handled some of the most consequential and complicated cases of the past few years.
Close All the Crypto Cases
Joe Konizeski worked as a CFTC enforcement lawyer for 26 years. He was one of the dozens forced out in 2025. He remembers what the acting chair, Caroline Pham, told the staff. "The acting chair said, 'We're closing all our crypto [cases],'" Konizeski said. "And so, of course, everybody who had a crypto scam had to close it and any matter that was even marginally related to crypto ended up getting closed."
Since Trump took office, the CFTC has rolled back its enforcement actions against Gemini, Celsius and FTX. FTX, in case anyone's memory needs a refresh, is the one that vaporized customer money and sent its founder to prison.
Pham left the agency in December 2025. She is now the chief legal and administrative officer at MoonPay, a cryptocurrency company. She did not respond to NPR's request for comment on whether she gave the industry preferential treatment. Draw your own conclusions about a regulator who goes straight to work for the regulated. We already drew ours.
It Wasn't Just Crypto
You might assume the damage stopped at digital coins. It didn't. Konizeski says the thinned-out staff forced the agency to dismiss other cases too, including a foreign exchange fraud case against WorldWideMarkets Inc. That company was accused of defrauding millions from users.
Another former CFTC lawyer, who spoke anonymously for fear of professional repercussions, left voluntarily soon after Pham took over. "Enforcement was particularly closed in crypto and prediction market cases," the former staffer said. "A lot of people left because, once Pham took over, it became clear that enforcement was not a priority."
That is the quiet way a regulator dies. Nobody has to repeal anything. You just stop caring out loud, and the people who do care go find other jobs.
Fewer Cops, More Fraud
Here's the timing problem. Before crypto and prediction markets exploded, the CFTC mostly watched traditional derivatives like grain and stock futures. Now it is supposed to oversee a sprawling new world where hundreds of billions trade every week, with a workforce that is shrinking instead of growing.
"Fewer cops on the beat… creates a real incentive to start engaging in fraudulent and deceitful behavior," Konizeski said. "Enforcement is down and that means that there's going to be more fraud."
His prime example is the advertising. He accuses Polymarket and Kalshi of "using fraudulent means" to lure young men onto their platforms, and says the CFTC "knows this and allows it to continue." Neither company responded to NPR's questions about whether their ads target young men. The agency's statement thanked "the dedicated staff who continue to support this mission each day." Both of them.
The Watchdog in the Barn
There is a flicker of accountability on the horizon. The Government Accountability Office, Congress's watchdog agency, is now investigating the CFTC's workforce reduction, according to a letter NPR obtained. The probe follows a July request from Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., for a federal look at the agency's staffing and fraud enforcement.
"It's supposed to be out there regulating the market, but it doesn't appear to be doing it and frankly, doesn't appear to have the people to do it," Warren told NPR. She wants to know whether the watchdog is "out there doing a little barking, or has the watchdog been locked up somewhere back in the barn?"
The GAO says it is still gathering staff and resources and will "initiate" the investigation in December. So the cops are gone, the markets are booming, and the investigation into the missing cops hasn't technically started yet.
The Dingo Take
Imagine a Democratic administration taking office, gutting the agency that polices fossil fuel traders, and then watching the acting chief hop to a job at an oil company. Imagine former staffers saying the cases against drillers were killed to impress the industry. Fox News would run a countdown clock. There would be a special prosecutor by Thursday.
When it's crypto and prediction markets, though, we get a spokesman thanking "dedicated staff" and a GAO probe that starts in December. Same corruption, different donors, a whole lot less outrage. The double standard isn't subtle. It's the business model.
Here is what makes this ugly. The people who lose are not billionaires. They are the young men being served ads for betting platforms by companies that the cops have stopped watching. Ex-enforcement lawyers with decades on the job are telling you, on the record, that fraud goes up when the cops go away. Believe them. They were the cops.
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