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Senate Agriculture Committee Chair Debbie Stabenow of Michigan and Republican John Boozeman of Arkansas are set to propose legislation that would allow the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to control more BTC and ETH. Currently, the CFTC has the power to control interest rate swaps and futures, not underlying commodities.
What the New Bill for the CFTC Provides
It is supposed, if adopted, to transfer control of the Bitcoin and Ethereum cryptocurrencies to this federal agency. In fact, the bill marks the final stage of the struggle between federal agencies and congressional committees. After 13 years in the US, cryptocurrencies are still not properly regulated by the federal authorities. This leads to market manipulation and defrauding investors of billions of dollars.
Due to the collapse of several projects, in particular Terra, investors lost tens of billions of dollars, which prompted politicians to increase pressure on the market through new laws.
As Aaron Klein, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, points out, cryptocurrencies are now the focus of congressional committees and regulators.
What will the new law bring to the CFTC and the industry in general
For the federal regulator, the addition of Bitcoin and ETH cryptocurrencies will allow them to expand their influence in the market, provide more bureaucratic influence. As for the crypto market itself, it will receive another regulator that will carry out supervisory functions on it. How good or bad it is, it is impossible to say now.
The most important result of this transfer of responsibility from the conditional Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is that this is almost an official confirmation of the status of a “commodity” for these two cryptocurrencies, which means no possible claims proceedings to the definition of “security” applicable to Bitcoin and Ethereum will not.
However, the bill will only be considered, it is possible that numerous amendments will be made to it. If it is still accepted, then the bureaucratic pressure on cryptocurrencies will increase.
This is the logic of bureaucratic systems, even more control and supervision functions. But as practice shows, this often leads to the fact that instead of simplifying work, we get normative chaos. The more regulators in the cryptocurrency market, the faster it turns into a classic stock market.
Unfortunately, we have to admit that the bureaucratic pressure on the once free crypto market is intensifying. Exchanges and companies are forced to obey him, because they do not have effective tools to maintain their independence. Surprisingly, the cryptocurrency world, where there are a lot of young developers and participants, is ruled by older politicians.
Author: Vadim Gruzdev, analyst at Freedman Сlub Crypto News
#Senators #Transfer #Oversight #BTC #ETH #CFTC
