According to Christopher Giancarlo, former chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the CFTC is the only U.S. regulatory agency with experience in regulating Bitcoin and cryptocurrency markets and not SEC.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of the United States has expanded the scope of its oversight of the cryptocurrency industry, but a commissioner with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has asserted that cryptocurrency regulation does not fall under the SEC’s purview.
Commissioner Brian Quintenz of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) declared on Twitter on Wednesday that cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin (BTC) should be regulated by the CFTC rather than the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has stated that cryptocurrencies are commodities and therefore fall under its jurisdiction, as opposed to securities, which are regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), as follows:
The SEC states that it has no authority over pure commodities or their trading venues, regardless of whether the commodities in question are wheat, gold, oil, or cryptocurrency assets.
Quintenz’s comments came just over half an hour after former CFTC Chairman Christopher Giancarlo made a similar statement on Twitter, arguing that the CFTC is the only U.S. regulatory agency with experience regulating markets for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
“If the Biden Administration is serious about sensible cryptocurrency regulation, it needs to nominate a CFTC chairman,” Giancarlo noted.
Only one US regulatory agency has experience regulating markets for #Bitcoin & #Crypto and it is not @SECGov. It is @CFTC. If #BidenAdministration is serious about sensible #Cryptocurrency #regulation, it needs to nominate a CFTC #chairman.
— Chris Giancarlo (@giancarloMKTS) August 4, 2021
The U.S. House Committee on Agriculture is a permanent committee in the United States House of Representatives. Quintenz’s statement was subsequently endorsed by the House of Representatives (House).
As stated on the committee’s official Twitter account, cryptocurrencies are “bigger than the SEC,” and the Congress “needs to write the rules of the road to protect investors and innovation in the digital economy.”
The new remarks appear to be in response to recent remarks by SEC chairman Gary Gensler, who called for increased regulatory oversight of the cryptocurrency industry in order to broaden the scope of the regulatory regime to include decentralized exchanges.
According to reports, Gensler stated that there has been a great deal of debate about what types of digital assets should fall under the SEC’s jurisdiction, given that the authority previously determined that major cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ether (ETH) did not qualify as securities.