CFTC Commissioner – ‘No way to police all crypto-fraud’

• CFTC Commissioner believes that there is no way to police all the fraud in the crypto space.
• The Commissioner warned that her agency was not a “light touch regulator”.

Christy Goldsmith Romero, one of the five Commissioners of the U.S. Commodities and Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), stated that there is no way to police all the fraud in the crypto market.

The CFTC official’s remarks came during a recent white collar crime conference at the New York City Bar Association.

CFTC Commissioner: Lot of fraud in crypto

According to a report by Reuters, CFTC Commissioner Christy Romero believes that the sheer volume of fraud that exists in the crypto space makes it difficult for the federal regulator to effectively police the industry.

To elaborate on how big the fraud problem in crypto was, Commissioner Romero added that crypto cases account for about 20% of the CFTC’s portfolio. These included the ongoing civil cases against bankrupt crypto exchange FTX and crypto giant Binance. 

“There’s just a lot of fraud in the space. There’s just no way we can police all the fraud, but we’ve got to do something,” the CFTC official stated while addressing the crime conference in New York.

She revealed that her agency is currently involved in several big cases. Speaking on the supposed tussle with fellow federal regulator Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Romero clarified that there was no “turf war” going on between the two over regulation of the crypto industry. 

Commissioner Romero attributed the suspected tensions between the CFTC and the SEC to the fact that several products in the crypto industry are new and that federal regulators are still trying to figure out the best way to effectively police and regulate them.

In a warning to those who assumed the CFTC to be “friendlier” than the SEC, the Commissioner said that her agency was not a “light touch regulator”.