Kristin Johnson, considered one of 5 commissioners at present serving at the USA Commodity Futures Buying and selling Fee, or CFTC, has introduced {that a} CME Group government director with expertise in crypto will probably be becoming a member of her workers.
In a Thursday announcement, Johnson said Bruce Fekrat will probably be her chief counsel on the CFTC beginning on June 1. Fekrat labored as an government director and affiliate common counsel on the CME Group for greater than eight years, the place he was lead regulatory counsel for points together with digital property. Throughout his time on the derivatives market, he regulated cryptocurrency reference charges and helped within the growth of economic merchandise together with Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) derivatives.
Nominated by U.S. President Joe Biden in September 2021, Johnson was sworn in inside days of each Christy Goldsmith Romero and Summer season Mersinger filling the opposite vacant commissioner seats on the CFTC in March 2022 — the federal government company usually has 5 commissioners in its panel. Along with Fekrat, Johnson introduced Lillian Cardona and Natasha Robinson Coates will be a part of her workers as interim senior counsels.
NEWS: @CFTCjohnson Declares Preliminary Employees Appointments. https://t.co/eZhdbPMclo
— CFTC (@CFTC) May 5, 2022
Although former commissioner Daybreak Stump beforehand instructed Cointelegraph that the CFTC “doesn’t regulate crypto property even when they’re commodities,” having workers with expertise in cryptocurrencies may doubtlessly affect digital asset regulation in the USA.
At current, the Securities and Alternate Fee, Federal Reserve, Treasury Division, CFTC and Monetary Crimes Enforcement Community deal with points coping with digital property in the USA, together with regulation and enforcement. Nevertheless, every company usually has totally different jurisdictional claims, leading to a regulatory patchwork method many trade leaders have criticized.
Associated: Bringing crypto market ‘into the sunshine’ doesn’t deal with enforcement: CFTC chair
Throughout Fekrat’s tenure on the CME Group, the derivatives market launched Bitcoin futures contracts in December 2017 amid the bull run and later went on to introduce micro Bitcoin futures in Might 2021 and micro Ether futures in December 2021. In March, the group introduced it might launch choices buying and selling for its micro Bitcoin and Ether futures merchandise, topic to regulatory overview.
Cointelegraph reached out to Bruce Fekrat, however didn’t obtain a response on the time of publication.