U.S. Congressional Committee Openly Calls on CFTC to Clarify Bitcoin Regulatory Policy to Provide More Certainty to the Public and Protect Market Participants

Just as President Obama is about to leave office, a U.S. congressional committee has called on the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to focus on digital currency regulation.

Just after Trump won the 2016 U.S. presidential election, the U.S. House of Representatives Agriculture Committee sent a letter to CFTC Chairman Timothy Massad, expressing concerns that the outgoing administration would use the remaining time to push new regulations.

Mike Conaway, chairman of the commission, called on the CFTC to avoid launching "controversial regulatory actions" in the final month of Obama's term. Instead, Conaway said the CFTC should focus on its responsibilities as a market regulator and pursue other types of "day-to-day work," including enforcement actions.

Conaway also suggested that the CFTC could have prioritized regulation of digital currencies before Trump took office.

He wrote:

“The CFTC can provide further clarity on regulation of digital currencies. Bringing more certainty to the public will help strengthen this technology as well as protect emerging market participants.”

In September 2015, the CFTC officially announced that it would regulate Bitcoin as a commodity. At that time, the CFTC was accusing the Bitcoin options platform Coinflip of conducting commodity options trading activities without registration or compliance with exemption rules.

The agency said at the time:

“Bitcoin and other virtual currencies fall within the definition of commodities.”

The CFTC has also held public hearings on blockchain. Senior officials at the agency, such as Commissioner J Christopher Giancarlo, are pushing the CFTC to take a more lenient stance on blockchain technology.