Former CFTC chairman claims that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has no control over the regulation of cryptocurrencies.
As the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is trying to widen its control over the crypto market, a commissioner of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) argued that crypto doesn’t fall under SEC’s jurisdiction.
According to Brian Quintenz, commissioner with CFTC, crypto is a commodity and can be regulated only on CFTC, unlike SEC that can regulate only securities. He stated that:
Just so we’re all clear here, the SEC has no authority over pure commodities or their trading venues, whether those commodities are wheat, gold, oil….or crypto assets.
Quintenz’s reaction came after the former CFTC’s chairman, Christopher Giancarlo, made a similar tweet stating that CFTC is the only U.S. regulatory that has experience in regulating cryptocurrencies.
“If the Biden Administration is serious about sensible cryptocurrency regulation, it needs to nominate a CFTC chairman,” Giancarlo noted.
Quintenz’s statement was also supported by the U.S. House Committee on Agriculture. The committee’s office took to Twitter and said that crypto is “bigger than SEC” and the Congress “needs to write the rules of the road to protect investors and innovation in the digital economy.”
All these reactions come after recent remarks made by SEC chairman, Gary Gensler, saying that there should be an increased oversight in regulating crypto. He outlined that there’s been much discussion about what kind of digital asets come under SEC’s control as the Commission had earlier cleared that major cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) are not securities.
In its response, Michael Arrington, the founder of TechCrunch, said that Gensler “thinks” all digital assets and cryptocurrencies are under his “control”.
The Digital Asset Market Structure and Investor Protection Act introduced last week by U.S. Representative Don Beyer provides the SEC with authority over “digital asset securities” and the CFTC with “authority over digital assets.”