CFTC commissioner says crypto is a commodity and should not be regulated by the SEC

While most probably assume that the United States Securities and Exchange Commission should be the regulatory body to oversee the crypto industry, a commissioner with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission thinks otherwise. Brian Quintenz argued that digital assets such as Bitcoin should be regulated by the CFTC and not the SEC.

CFTC commissioner Brian Quintenz believes that the crypto industry is not within the SEC’s jurisdiction, according to Cointelegraph. In a Twitter post on Wednesday, he declared that cryptocurrencies are commodities and should fall under CFTC’s jurisdiction just as securities should be regulated by the SEC.

“Just so we’re all clear here, the SEC has no authority over pure commodities or their trading venues, whether those commodities are wheat, gold, oil….or crypto assets,” Quintenz posted on Twitter.

Half an hour earlier, former CFTC Chair Christopher Giancarlo also posted a similar statement on Twitter. Giancarlo argued that regulating markets for Bitcoin and crypto should fall under CFTC, being the only agency with regulatory experience in this area.

“Only one US regulatory agency has experience regulating markets for Bitcoin & crypto and it is not SEC,” Giancarlo said. “It is CFTC. If Biden administration is serious about sensible cryptocurrency regulation, it needs to nominate a CFTC chairman.”

Apparently, it’s not only Quintenz and Giancarlo who believe that the SEC might not be up to the challenge. Even the U.S. House Committee on Agriculture expressed support for Quintenz’s statement in a post to its official Twitter account.

“CFTC’s Quintenz is right, crypto is bigger than the SEC,” the U.S. House Committee on Agriculture wrote on social media. “Congress needs to write the rules of the road to protect investors AND innovation in the digital economy.”

Quintenz and Giancarlo’s statements came after SEC Chair Gary Gensler called for increased oversight in the digital assets industry to include decentralized exchanges and other DeFi players under its jurisdiction.

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