The Chairman of the Commodity Futures Buying and selling Fee (CFTC), Rostin Behnam, has reiterated his place that stablecoins and Ether are commodities and will fall underneath the CFTC’s purview. Behnam made the assertion throughout a Senate agriculture listening to on March 8, in response to questions from Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand.
Behnam’s feedback are more likely to escalate the tug-of-war between regulators within the US over the management of cryptocurrencies, with the Securities and Change Fee (SEC) and the CFTC having differing views on the difficulty.
The CFTC’s opinion on Ether and stablecoins was strengthened after the company’s settlement with stablecoin issuer Tether in 2021. Behnam said that it was “clear to our regulatory group and the Fee that Tether, a stablecoin, was a commodity.”
The CFTC has beforehand argued that digital property akin to Ether, Bitcoin and Tether are commodities, as evidenced by its lawsuit towards FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried in December 2021.
Behnam defended the CFTC’s place through the Senate listening to, stating that the company wouldn’t have allowed Ether futures to be listed on its exchanges if it didn’t imagine Ether was a commodity asset.
Throughout the listening to, Senator Gillibrand requested Behnam what proof the CFTC would current to win regulatory affect over Ether, to which Behnam replied that the company would want “severe authorized defenses” to assist its argument.
Behnam’s place is at odds with SEC Chairman Gary Gensler, who claimed in a February 23 interview with New York Journal that “the whole lot however Bitcoin” is a safety. The differing views of regulators might result in a regulatory battle as every fights for management of the cryptocurrency trade.
In mid-February, the SEC focused stablecoin issuer Paxos, alleging that its Binance USD stablecoin was an unregistered safety and stating that it might sue the corporate for violating investor safety legal guidelines. The SEC additionally focused Terraform Labs, claiming its algorithmic stablecoin TerraUSD Basic was a safety.
Behnam’s feedback have been met with backlash from the cryptocurrency trade, with Circle founder and CEO Jeremy Allaire saying he would not imagine the “SEC is the regulator of stablecoins,” and that they need to be overseen by a banking regulator.
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