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One of the Commissioners of Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), Dawn D. Stump, released a statement on Monday detailing the agency’s regulatory authority over digital assets. She said,
“The CFTC’s regulatory oversight authority, as well as the application of our enforcement authority, must be well understood by the public. Only then can proper regulatory compliance be demanded.”
With the growth in cryptos’ popularity raising the question of how this new financial asset class is regulated in the US, Stump said, “there has often been a grossly inaccurate oversimplification,” regarding either categorizing them as securities regulated by the SEC or commodities regulated by the CFTC. This misunderstanding about “US regulatory delineations has grown to a point” that Stump believes it now requires correction. In response, she has laid out ten points as to how and what the CFTC regulates. These basics by Stump covers that commodity’s definition under CFTC is “extremely broad” and does not regulate cash commodities. So, “Even if a digital asset is a commodity, it is not regulated by the CFTC,” however, the CFTC does regulate derivatives on digital assets, it said. She further states that when it comes to CFTC’s regulatory authority concerning crypto-assets, instead of considering whether a cryptocurrency is a commodity or security, the focus should be on whether a futures contract or other derivatives product is involved.
“The CFTC does not regulate commodities (regardless of whether or not they are securities); rather, it regulates derivatives—and this is true for digital assets just as for any other asset class.”
CFTC Chair Brian Quintez, a notable crypto advocate meanwhile, is preparing to spend August 31st as his last day in the office. In his statement upon departure, he said,
"During my term, the CFTC has overseen the listing of Bitcoin futures contracts; the custody of digital assets within the traditional clearing infrastructure; the proliferation of blockchain technology; the creation of cryptographic, tokenized commodities; and the rapid expansion of decentralized finance (DeFi), which purports to realize the ultimate transparency-competition-innovation-reward dynamic of a true free market.”
US president Joe Biden is reportedly planning to nominate acting CFTC Chair Rostim Behnem to serve as the full chairman.