In fiscal year 2022 CFTC obtained enforcement rights totaling $2.5 billion after filing 82 lawsuits with enforcement actions against participants in the financial sector. Defendants in 18 of them were crypto startups, according to the agency’s agency report.
“The document demonstrates the CFTC’s continued aggressive oversight of new digital asset markets by all available tools”, said Rostin Benham, the agency’s head.
The report highlights notable proceedings:
- the issuer of the stablecoin Tether was fined $41 million for ‘false or misleading statements’ about full backing of USDT;
- the bitcoin exchange Bitfinex paid $1.5 million for offering futures contracts on the platform without registration and for entering into off-exchange trades with US residents;
- the cryptocurrency derivatives exchange Digitex Futures and its CEO Adam Todd agreed with charges of illegally offering futures contracts on an unregistered platform, and of attempting to manipulate the price of its own token and failing to meet KYC/AML-requirements;
- Mirror Trading International Proprietary Limited and its head Cornelius Johannes Steenberg were named as defendants in a $1.7 billion fraud case, raised from 23,000 US residents through a sham broker;
- Ooki DAO became a party to a case involving the unlawful offer of exchange-traded goods using borrowed funds and violations of the Bank Secrecy Act.
In October, Benham warned participants in the digital assets space about the inevitability of regulation and expressed confidence that Bitcoin and Ethereum are commodities.
Earlier, Senators Cynthia Lummis and Kirsten Gillibrand introduced a bipartisan bill to regulate the cryptocurrency market. According to the document, most of them fall under the CFTC’s jurisdiction as digital commodity tokens.
In August, FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried supported the bill to grant the Commission authority to regulate the crypto market.
Later, SEC Chair Gary Gensler supported expanding the CFTC’s mandate in the industry.
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