Removing Uncertainty, enabling Prosperity: A Discussion with CFTC Chairman Rostin Behnam

- “Thoughtful regulation will support scaling the market and start to expose the underlying technology that could be transformational”

- Behnam called for Trump and the US Congress to take a bipartisan and long- term view

- 50% of the CFTC’s enforcement budget was devoted to crypto under his tenure

Outgoing Chairman of Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), Rostin Behnam, called for a concerted effort to get a comprehensive and bipartisan digital assets regulation through US Congress and signed by the next president.

“Come to a compromise [among stakeholders] and try to get it done in a very comprehensive way. Ultimately, shortcutting regulation or policy because of disagreement or short sightedness is going to undermine the long-term vision of what many of you see as the possibility in this space,” he told Eric van der Kleij, Co-Founder and Partner at the EdenBase Fund.

Behnam reported that almost 50% of the CFTC’s enforcement budget is crypto or digital asset related, which has been a challenge over the past four years when the same budget covers the $1 trillion commodity derivatives market, which impacts everyday lives of people across the globe.

“We are pulled organically into this market from an enforcement perspective, yet we don’t have traditional regulatory authority, which is registering exchanges, overseeing broker- dealers,” he explained. “We’ve had this externality come in that we didn’t budget for, and it is pulling resources in a way that’s unmanageable.”

He emphasised that while a regulator’s priority is to protect customers and ensure they don’t lose money, an overly restrictive regulatory stance stifles innovation and thwarts the efforts of the crypto industry to achieve their goals. When asked what he would recommend to an incoming CFTC chair in terms of budget, he advocated justifying “in a rational way” to overseers why a bigger budget is needed, as well as intelligent regulation.

“In the context of healthy markets, growing markets, and a community of believers in digital assets and crypto, strong, thoughtful regulation will support scaling the market and start to expose the underlying technology that could be transformational,” he said.