In the United States, there is tension between the Securities and Exchanges Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) as both the agencies are claiming their authority on digital assets.
Congressman Darren Soto, D-Florida, in a recent interview with Cheddar, said that it is better if the CFTC regulates the digital assets in the country, rather than the securities regulator, the SEC.
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“Securities laws can be very intense and hurt the market unless it’s truly a security. Overall, we hope to establish jurisdiction and classifications so we can bring confidence and clarity into the market,” Soto told Cheddar.
Last month, the Democrat congressman along with Congressman Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, introduced a bipartisan bill – Token Taxonomy Act – in the house to exclude cryptocurrencies from the standard securities laws. The bill, if passed, will amend the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.
“There’ll be a role for the CFTC and FTC to play and we’ll be saving the SEC for true securities, knowing predominantly that these are commodities and currency transactions,” the Congressman added. “Those are agencies with a lighter touch and we have grown consensus among the industry that they’d be appropriate for the majority of these types of cryptocurrency transactions and the nature of these assets.”
CFTC, Not SEC
Currently, the SEC has a tighter grip on the digital assets, and the agency is trying to curb the industry by categorizing most of them as securities. Bitcoin and Ethereum, however, comes under the watch of the CFTC as both of them are very decentralized.
Commenting on the difficulty on the exchange’s part to determine a response, Soto said he wants the CFTC to at least “establish a rudimentary structure to instill confidence and clarity, so we can continue to dominate in this area for the future of our economy.”