Category:

CFTC

Online Daily Fantasy Sports – Gambling or Derivatives Trading?

Patrick Gilsenan Senior Editor Loyola University Chicago School of Law, Weekend JD Dec. 2022 The question of why it’d be legal to gamble in the stock market but not the Super Bowl has been made moot in recent years.  In the wake of recent Supreme Court decisions and state legalization, sports betting is widespread and …
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Coinbase Proposes a New Regulator to Oversee Digital Assets After Feud with SEC

In October 2021, the cryptocurrency exchange platform Coinbase released a proposal for a regulatory framework that would designate a single regulator for the digital asset markets.  This proposal comes less than a month after Coinbase’s CEO had a public meltdown on Twitter after the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) sent the firm a Wells Notice, a warning of potential litigation, about their planned cryptocurrency lending platform allegedly violating securities regulations.  As the digital asset market grows and the financial institutions involved become more influential, regulators continue to struggle with jurisdictional and definitional questions around the new products.

Agencies Approve Notice of Proposed Changes to Volcker Rule

At the end of January, the Federal Reserve Board, the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (the “Agencies”) approved a notice of proposed rulemaking (“Proposed Rule”) to amend the “covered fund” provisions of section 13 of the Bank Holding Company Act, also known as the “Volcker Rule” (the “Rule”).  The Volcker Rule is a regulation that generally prohibits banks from certain investment activities with their own accounts and limits their dealings with private equity and hedge funds, also known as “covered funds.”

Market Integrity Enforcement Update

In addition to enforcement agencies attempting to tame the seemingly untameable world of cryptocurrency trading, agencies continue to tackle issues of market manipulation, including spoofing, as well as push into investigating international corruption in an effort to maintain economic and market integrity. As new developments emerge, compliance directors and operations associates will hopefully gain more guidance on coaching traders on exchange rules.

Following Classification of Cryptocurrencies as Commodities, Regulators Shift Focus

On March 6th, 2018 the. District Court for the Eastern District of New York upheld the classification of cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin and Litecoin, as commodities. The ruling subjects the cryptocurrencies to the regulation of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).