CFTC head looks to new Congress for action on crypto regulation

Rostin Behnam, seat of the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission, oregon CFTC, has said helium volition beryllium continuing efforts for the bureau to modulate non-security tokens.

In remarks released for a Feb. 3 American Bar Association event, Behnam pointed to “bankruptcies, failures, and runs” arsenic portion of the justification for Congress to springiness the CFTC the authorization to code regularisation for cryptocurrencies. According to the CFTC chair, the committee was "well positioned" to code immoderate regulatory gaps but deferred to U.S. lawmakers to propulsion the trigger connected legislation.

“Regulation is indispensable to support customers and to forestall failures which cannot predictably beryllium contained wrong immoderate boundaries crossed the home and planetary fiscal markets,” said Behnam. “Regardless of whether 1 oregon galore hap successful 2023 oregon 2033, we indispensable act. There is simply a caller Congress, and I volition proceed to prosecute and supply method assistance to draught legislation, arsenic requested.”

Today @CFTCbehnam volition present a keynote code astatine the ABA Business Law Section Derivatives & Futures Law Committee Winter Meeting. Read it arsenic prepared here: https://t.co/PZuT4vzrBr

— CFTC (@CFTC) February 3, 2023

According to the CFTC chair, fund increases for the committee would besides assistance turn its enforcement team, which brought 69 crypto-related actions to day — a database that includes FTX, Ooki DAO, and others. Behnam said the squad was “working towards different beardown twelvemonth of precedent-setting cases” against fraudulent oregon amerciable integer plus projects.

Related: CFTC slammed for ‘blatant regularisation by enforcement’ implicit Ooki DAO case

Though the governmental constitution of the 118th Congress differs somewhat from that of its predecessor, it’s unclear if the CFTC volition beryllium fixed further authorization nether Behnam. One of the pieces of authorities lawmakers whitethorn revisit is the Lummis-Gillibrand Responsible Financial Innovation Act — a measure archetypal introduced successful June 2022 aimed astatine addressing the roles of the CFTC and Securities and Exchange Commission connected crypto regulation.