CFTC Chair seeks more authority over cryptocurrencies regulation

The US Commodities Future Trading Commission (CFTC) is vouching for a leading role in regulating crypto assets, as evidenced by CFTC Chair Rostin Behnam’s latest remarks before the US Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry.

On February 9, Behnam attended a hearing, titled “Examining Digital Assets: Risks, Regulation, and Innovation, where he called attention to the risks of market manipulation and fraud surrounding cryptocurrencies and deemed his agency as the better fit in regulating the ecosystem.

“At the CFTC, we have seen that a regulatory regime focused on core principles can be successful in overseeing a wide variety of markets, and have no reason to think those same principles cannot be applied to digital asset markets,” he wrote in a letter addressed to the agriculture committees.

In addition to more authority, the chairman asked for an increase of at least $100 million to CFTC’s annual budget of $300 million to better regulate the crypto market. Behnam remarked during the meeting:

“We don’t have any of these very advanced tools to monitor markets so it’s giving us a very, very narrow lens into what is actually happening in the market. This is why I think as you contemplate more regulatory authority for the CFTC, bringing this market into the light so to speak with more transparency will only allow us to see what’s going on underneath the hood.”

The CFTC and the SEC have long been battling for a key role in regulating cryptocurrencies, with each claiming to be the better-suited agency for overseeing the industry. Currently, the CFTC oversees crypto derivatives markets and fraud or manipulation, whereas the SEC is more geared towards regulating platforms that seek to list and trade crypto as securities.

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