The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) said it has aggressively enforced 18 crypto-related legal actions in 2022 to show its commitment to protecting consumers and ensuring market integrity.
The CFTC’s 2022 enforcement report — released on Oct. 20 — highlighted that it had imposed over $2.5 billion as fines against 82 legal actions involving commodity assets, including cryptocurrencies.
Crypto-related actions represented over 20% of its enforcement, as 18 entities were indicted. The report highlighted actions against Ooki DAO, Digitx Futures, Gemini exchange, Tether, and Mirror Trading International.
The CFTC set a precedent on Sept. 22 after it charged Ooki DAO and imposed a $250,000 against. It claimed that the DAO offered illegal leverage and margin trading services and failed to comply with the Bank Secrecy Act.
Crypto exchange “Digitex Futures” was also charged because of offering unregistered futures offerings, manipulating its native token DGTX, and failing to implement KYC and anti-money laundering measures.
The CFTC sued crypto exchange Gemini for allegedly providing false information about the vulnerability of the Futures Contracts to market manipulation back in 2017.
Stablecoin issuer Tether was indicted and imposed a fine of $41 million for making misleading statements about U.S. dollar holdings in its reserve.
South Africa-based Mirror Trading International (MIT) was charged for allegedly defrauding investors of over $1.7 billion worth of Bitcoin.
The CFTC Chairman Rostin Behnam noted that the CFTC was out to aggressively prosecute bad actors in the crypto market. Behnam said:
“The FY 2022 enforcement report shows the CFTC continues to aggressively police new digital commodity asset markets with all of its available tools.”
More regulatory power coming to CFTC
Earlier in June, several crypto exchanges showed their support for the CFTC to become the primary regulator for the crypto industry.
The U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee moved to introduce a bill that will put the CFTC in charge of regulating digital commodities, including Bitcoin and Ethereum.
In support of the lawmaker’s proposal, SEC Chairman Gary Gensler said he wants more regulatory power to be given to CFTC as long “as it does not take away power from the SEC.”
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