CFTC Selig on New Crypto Rules: Anti-Manipulation, Anti-Fraud, We Expect Customers to Want to Trade on These Platforms

EXCERPT:

SELIG: “We've got statutory authority and we're going to use it. The SEC is doing the same. They issued their proposed reg crypto assets, which is kind of the framework for distributing crypto assets. And Gary Gensler is very critical of these offerings, which he and others refer to as initial coin offerings. That created a path to get the tokens into the United States with the protections of the securities laws. But the tokens themselves are not securities in most instances, so they need a place to trade. And we saw four years ago with the collapse of FTX, many of these exchanges, even if they're licensed at the state level, don't have market-based regulations. So we're putting in place market-based regulation, anti-manipulation, anti-fraud, segregation of customer assets, segregation of functions between brokers, exchanges, and clearing. And we expect customers to want to trade on these platforms that are federally regulated. It's an option. We don't have the ability to say every exchange needs to register with us, as the Clarity Act would have done, but we can create a federal option. And that's exactly what we're doing here today.”