US CFTC Sends Strict Warning to 3 DEFI Companies
CFTC Warns Digital Money Companies: Three big digital finance firms face warnings from the CFTC, raising questions on who should oversee online money trading.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has warned three digital finance companies, Opyn, ZeroEx, and Deridex, about illegal activities. This has made similar companies nervous about the CFTC's reach.
These companies, according to the CFTC, were running platforms without proper registration and were involved in illegal digital money deals. For example, ZeroEx's tool, Matcha, allowed trading that gave double the value of assets like bitcoin. This breaks the rules.
However, some experts and people inside the CFTC think the warning to ZeroEx might be wrong. They say that ZeroEx was involved in spot trading, an area CFTC can't control currently. Rodrigo Seira, a legal expert, expressed concerns about this on X, a social platform.
CFTC Commissioner Summer Mersigner disagreed with the CFTC's decision too. She mentioned that what ZeroEx was doing – spot trading of digital money – is allowed. Mersigner felt it's unfair to blame a company just because others misuse its tools.
At the same time, leaders in Congress are discussing giving more power to the CFTC in the world of digital money. An upcoming law could allow both the CFTC and another agency, the US Security and Exchange Commission, to control this market.
Jake Chervinsky, from the Blockchain Association, feels that the CFTC might not be the best choice to regulate digital finance. He criticized the CFTC for how it acted against these companies.
In the past, CFTC Chair Rostin Behnam asked for more control over these markets. Chervinsky believes that only court decisions, not just words, will decide what's right and wrong in this space.
