Crypto derivatives exchange BitMEX has agreed to pay up to $100 million to resolve a case from the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission, or CFTC, and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN. In a Tuesday announcement, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission said the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York had entered a consent order for HDR Global Trading Limited, 100x Holding Limited, ABS Global Trading Limited, Shine Effort Inc Limited and HDR Global Services Limited to be charged with illegally operating the BitMEX platform. As part of the settlement with both the CFTC and …

Amid the United States Securities and Exchange Commission’s expanding the scope of oversight of the cryptocurrency industry, a commissioner with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission argued that crypto regulation doesn’t fall under the SEC’s jurisdiction. CFTC commissioner Brian Quintenz took to Twitter on Wednesday to declare that cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) should be regulated by the CFTC rather than the SEC. Quintenz stressed that cryptocurrencies are commodities and thus fall under the CFTC’s jurisdiction, as opposed to securities that are regulated by the SEC, stating: “Just so we’re all clear here, the SEC has no authority over pure commodities or …

Timothy Massad, who served as Chair of the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission between 2014 and 2017, has laid out the reasons why he thinks regulators should approve a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund. In an opinion piece published on Bloomberg Wednesday, Massad said the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, should approve a Bitcoin ETF in a manner that would enhance the transparency and integrity of the nascent cryptocurrency industry. This way, investors can access the digital asset without having to buy it off exchanges or worry about self-custody. Massad said the ideal path for approving a Bitcoin ETF would …

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, has charged a cryptocurrency issuer for “making materially false and misleading statements” in connection with an unregistered security offering conducted between August 2017 and January 2018, offering further evidence that regulators were still targeting initial coin offerings from the last major market mania. Loci Inc., the platform behind LOCIcoin, and CEO John Wise were formally charged on Tuesday. The SEC claims that Loci and Wise misled investors about the company’s revenues, employee numbers and user base during the $7.6 million crowdsale. The regulator also alleges that Wise misused $38,163 in investor …

According to a report from blockchain analytics firm Elliptic, unregistered securities offerings represent more than half of all crypto fines handed out by U.S. regulators. In Elliptic’s June 21 Sanctions Compliance in Cryptocurrencies report, the firm's co-founder and Chief Scientist, Dr. Tom Robinson writes that U.S. regulators have handed out $2.5 billion in fines for crypto-related violations since 2014. Out of the total $2.5 billion, unregistered securities offerings accounted for $1.38 billion worth of penalties, or 55.19% of all fines dished out. Fraud was the second biggest crypto violation found in the report, accounting for 37.12% or $928 million worth …

One of the few high-profile public officials to have served under both the Obama and Trump administrations, Chris Giancarlo is a former Wall Street executive-turn-regulator who is widely-respected by nearly all parties on Capitol Hill. As the former Chairman of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, however, his latest venture, the Digital Dollar Foundation, might well test his soft touch with politicians. The former regulator is now leading the Foundation towards five pilot programs set to launch this year, part of a broader effort to help the United States regain the lead in a race against China towards a functioning CBDC. …

Dan M. Berkovitz, commissioner of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), believes DeFi derivatives platforms may contravene the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA). Speaking as part of a Tuesday keynote address dubbed “Climate Change and Decentralized Finance: New Challenges for the CFTC,” Berkovitz noted that: “Not only do I think that unlicensed DeFi markets for derivative instruments are a bad idea but I also do not see how they are legal under the CEA.” Berkovitz noted that the “CEA requires futures contracts to be traded on a designated contract market (DCM) licensed and regulated by the CFTC.” However, he asserted that …

When the United States Securities and Exchange Commission filed legal action against Ripple Labs and its top-two executives in December, alleging that its XRP coin was in fact a security and that the firm had raised over $1.38 billion through an unregistered securities offering in 2013, many wondered if XRP would even survive. Some exchanges delisted XRP; some asset managers sold their XRP tokens. XRP had lost its place as the top 3 currency by market capitalization and was even looking like it could drop from the top 10. But reports of Ripple’s demise were spectacularly exaggerated. As of mid-April, …

After settling charges of improper reporting of exchange volume and “self-trading” with the Community Futures Trading Commission, or CFTC, on Friday, reports have emerged that cryptocurrency exchange giant Coinbase is set to push back its stock listing to next month. The company had previously been expected to go public some time in March. On Friday, the CFTC announced a settlement with Coinbase over charges that the company inaccurately reported trading data on Bitcoin (BTC), and that an employee “self-traded” to create the illusion of volume and demand for Litecoin (LTC). “Reporting false, misleading, or inaccurate transaction information undermines the integrity …

Shortly after a Bloomberg report on Friday that cryptocurrency exchange Binance was under investigation for permitting US residents to place unlawful trades, Binance founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao (better known as CZ) dismissed the reports during a live AMA on Clubhouse, saying that the report had “no teeth.” “This is a topic that just came up, literally like a few minutes ago or a hour ago,” said CZ. “So number one, the news article said there was no, I don’t have it in front of me, there was no “misconduct,” I have to dig it up. So number one there …

Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by trade volume, is reportedly under investigation by the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission regarding possible trades made by U.S.-based customers. Binance Holdings Ltd is being investigated by the watchdog concerning possible derivatives trades made by American customers, Bloomberg reported on Friday, after being tipped off by an anonymous source. The exchange has not yet been accused of any wrongdoing, however, regulators are now reportedly seeking to determine whether cryptocurrency derivatives were bought and sold by U.S citizens on the Binance platform. A Binance spokesperson told Cointelegraph, “We do not comment, as a …

Without much fanfare, Heath Tarbert has announced his full departure from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission at the end of this week. In a tweet Wednesday morning, the former CFTC Chairman said that he would be fully resigning as of Friday. In December, he left his post as chairman, which the CFTC announced formally on its website, but he indicated that he intended to stay on at the commission for an indefinite length of time. Today's announcement did not clarify future plans. During his chairmanship, which began in 2019, Tarbert was a vocal advocate for cryptocurrency usage. He was, for …