CFTC Chair Rostin Behnam mentioned if Congress passes the FIT Act, he was “assured” that his company may construct a regulatory framework inside 12 months.
“This notion of crypto going away, I believe, is only a false narrative,” Behnam mentioned.
Commodity Futures Buying and selling Fee (CFTC) Chair Rostin Behnam reiterated his longstanding name for Congress to cross laws addressing regulators’ jurisdictions within the crypto business throughout an annual look earlier than the Home Agriculture Committee.
“We have to fill the hole in crypto regulation,” Behnam mentioned Wednesday, pointing to bitcoin’s (BTC) latest worth motion. He added that anticipating “one other interval of irrational exuberance” can be an understatement. “This notion of crypto going away, I believe, is only a false narrative.”
“We have to act, Congress must act to fill this hole, particularly round bitcoin which clearly is a commodity,” he mentioned. “Listed here are two of the most important tokens, making up roughly 60 to 70% of the entire market capitalization [of crypto],” he added, referring to BTC and ether (ETH)
Behnam was answering lawmaker questions in regards to the Monetary Innovation and Expertise Act for the twenty first Century (FIT Act), a invoice that handed by the Home Agriculture and Monetary Providers Committees final yr however by no means made it to a flooring vote. Wednesday’s listening to is targeted on the CFTC extra broadly, together with its funds requests for the upcoming fiscal yr. Earlier within the listening to, Behnam mentioned the company wanted extra certainty round its funds.
If Congress does cross the FIT Act, Behnam mentioned he was “assured” that the CFTC may construct a regulatory framework inside 12 months.
Later within the listening to, one other lawmaker – Rep. John Duarte (R-Calif.) – requested Behnam to elucidate how bitcoin or different cryptocurrencies had been commodities, pointing to bodily commodities as a doable instance.
Behnam mentioned the classification of bitcoin as a commodity “is generally used within the counter-negative.”
“If it is not a safety, then it is a commodity,” he mentioned, including, “wherein case, the evaluation has to happen to make a willpower that it is not a safety, which is often how we check whether or not it is an funding contract, and reply that query within the affirmative, that it is not a safety, that it turns into a commodity.”