As the United States leaders keep pushing for the regulation of digital currencies, two top regulatory bodies are trying their best to be given the obligation to regulate the digital market in the U.S.
Battle For Crypto Regulatory Duty
The two major contenders are the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Although the former is bigger considering its annual budget and the number of staff, the latter will likely emerge as the primary regulator of cryptocurrencies.
Following this, the Senate Agriculture Committee submitted a bill in support of the CFTC to the legislature two months ago. The bill stressed the need to grant them the authority to control the trading activities of the top digital currencies.
The SEC believes other altcoins, save Ethereum, are more like securities than commodities. They asked to be given control over the coins that fall under the security categories, with the main ones under CFTC.
Trading Platform Reacts
In reaction to this development, a top digital assets trading platform, Coinbase, wrote to the SEC. Coinbase’s letter explained that numerous rules associated with the agency would make it difficult for cryptocurrencies to enroll under them. He added that it is not reasonable.
The CFTC allows the buying and selling of assets with no intermediary involved. This suits the digital assets trading styles better. Therefore, they would pick CFTC over SEC.
Funds Required For Regulation
Comparing the two agencies, the size of staff and finance at the disposal of CFTC could hinder their optimum performance if saddled with the responsibilities. They have about 700 staff and an annual budget of $1.47B.
Conversely, the SEC with about 5000 staff and over $2B, is about six times larger in terms of staff, and their finance almost doubles that of CFTC. It is, however, obvious they’ll both require more funding if given the responsibility because they’ve been spending from their budgets.
However, because of the vast funds required to regulate digital assets, some lawmakers proposed that whichever regulatory body gets the responsibility should impose fees on the market players instead of asking the government to saddle the burden.
We still await the reactions of traders and digital platforms over the possibility of paying before they can operate in the digital market.
