According to Christy Goldsmith Romero, the top U.S. regulator at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), there is simply no way to stop all cryptocurrency fraud. The CFTC currently has several large cases in progress which represent about 20% of its portfolio, including recent civil cases against Binance and FTX.
At a conference on white collar crime at the New York City Bar Association, Goldsmith Romero said: “There’s just a lot of fraud in the space. There’s just no way we can police all the fraud, but we’ve got to do something.” CFTC Chairman Rostin Behnam recently asked for greater authority to supervise the spot crypto market from legislators.
Goldsmith Romero stated that there isn’t a turf war between the CFTC and the Securities and Exchange Commission, as both agencies have acknowledged their lack of experience in regulating the crypto industry due to the products being relatively new. She also made it clear that the CFTC should not be seen as a friendlier regulator than the SEC, which has a larger budget.
In March, the CFTC sued Binance and its CEO and founder Changpeng Zhao, accusing them of running a “sham program of compliance”. Zhao responded to the complaint by calling it an “incomplete recitation of facts”.
The CFTC also filed a case against FTX and its founder Sam Bankman-Fried, alleging the loss of customer deposits of more than 8 billion dollars. Bankman-Fried is also facing criminal charges related to the case from the U.S. Department of Justice.
