SEC’s Atkins sees crypto work with CFTC as ‘job No 1 right now’
The regulators have also called out prediction markets, perpetual futures, and 24/7 trading as areas ripe for agency coordination
[WASHINGTON] Coordinating cryptocurrency rules is the top task for key Wall Street regulators, US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chair Paul Atkins said on Monday (Sep 29).
“Crypto is job No 1 right now,” Atkins told reporters after a meeting between SEC and US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) leadership focusing on areas where the two agencies can work together. The regulators have also called out prediction markets, perpetual futures, and 24/7 trading as areas ripe for agency coordination.
“We just want to make sure that the rule books are in sync, that we don’t have any risk of arbitrage between the two systems,” Atkins said.
Many countries have a single regulator for financial markets, but in the US the SEC oversees stock and bond activities while the CFTC polices derivatives trading. Both agencies can end up overseeing different parts of financial firms, such as banks and hedge funds, and have engaged in battles over who is in charge of what, including crypto.
A bill working its way through Congress would divvy up digital assets oversight between the two regulators, giving a larger chunk to the CFTC. It’s not clear how much more resources or staff either agency would receive to handle the additional oversight.
“Imagine, if you will, that you could start over from a blank sheet of paper that you could come up with a market structure that works best for liquidity, for capital efficiency, for volume and for flow,” acting CFTC chairman Caroline Pham said on Monday. “I hope that’s what we are beginning to work on with today’s roundtable.”
Intended to be a multi-member, bipartisan agency, the CFTC is helmed by just Pham, a Republican, following a series of resignations by commissioners. Pham pushed back on the idea of uncertainty at the regulator, saying the CFTC is “alive and well”. BLOOMBERG
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