Case: 25-7187, 03/10/2026, DktEntry: 75.1, Page 22 of 43
the contingency, or whether the event’s occurrence or nonoccurrence causes downstream financial consequences, are not sufficient.” Id. Crypto.com’s sports- betting contracts do not satisfy this requirement and therefore do not qualify as swaps. Alternatively, the CFTC urges the Court to hold that Crypto.com’s sports- betting contracts are swaps because they are “commodity options,” and “the swap definition … includes options ….” CFTC Amicus Br. at 16, Dkt. No. 37.2 (citing 17 C.F.R. §§ 1.3, 32.2(a); then quoting 77 Fed. Reg. 25320, 25321 n.6 (Apr. 27, 2012)). Not so. The CFTC has recognized that commodity options are synonymous with the definition of swaps at 7 U.S.C. § 1a(47)(A)(i), which does not contain any language suggesting that commodity options include options on event outcomes. See 77 Fed. Reg. at 25321 n.6 (citing 7 U.S.C. § 1a(47)(A)(i)); 7 U.S.C. § 1a(47)(A)(i) (defining swap to include options on the “purchase or sale … of [] rates, currencies, commodities, securities ….”); see also 7 U.S.C. § 1a(9) (defining “commodity” to be limited to physical goods). And even if commodity options included options on excluded commodities, Crypto.com’s sports-betting contracts still would not qualify as swaps because sporting-event outcomes do not “inherently have a financial consequence” and thus are not “excluded commodities.” See Hendrick , 2025 WL 3286282, at *11 (discussing 7 U.S.C. § 1a(19)(iv)).
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