CFTC Chair Says More Crypto Enforcement Actions To Come This Year

• CFTC Chairman Rostin Benham expects 2023 to be a strong year of crypto enforcement actions. 
• The commodities regulator plans to grow its enforcement team with a budget increase. 
• Benham plans to use all the power at his disposal to go after bad actors in the crypto space. 
• The CFTC Chair has been pushing Congress to allow his agency to have direct oversight of non-security crypto tokens. 

The U.S Commodities and Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) plans to continue its crackdown on the bad actors in the crypto space this year. The commission’s chairman, Rostin Benham, said earlier today that his agency plans to use the full breadth of its authority to go after the illegal offering of transactions in digital assets as well as fraud and manipulation in connection with digital assets.

Increased budget will help CFTC’s growing enforcement team

Chairman Benham’s comments came at the Derivatives and Futures Law Winter Committee Meeting at an American Bar Association event. He made it clear that a gap exists in regulation for non-security tokens in the crypto cash market and that the CFTC was well positioned to fill this gap if Congress allows it. He has been pushing Congress to allow his agency to have more oversight of non-security crypto tokens. To that end, the commission has established several processes and guiding principles to handle digital assets. 

During the meeting, the Chairman revealed he plans to grow his enforcement and surveillance teams with an increase in budget. Furthermore, he expects 2023 to be “another strong year of precedent setting cases”, thanks to his “all-star” enforcement team. The commission has also issued an advisory to exchanges and clearinghouses reminding them of their self-regulatory obligations and is currently considering policies to restrict the trading of cryptocurrency-based derivatives by employees of designated contract markets (DCM) and cryptocurrency spot markets.

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