CFTC’s Pham Warns It Won’t Tolerate Crypto Lawbreakers
The Trump administration’s more relaxed attitude to crypto doesn’t mean the Commodity Futures Trading Commission will give the industry an easy ride, says the agency’s acting chair, Caroline Pham.
“There is no easy street for anybody, and regulators aren’t easy,” Pham told Yahoo Finance at the Coinbase Annual Summit on Thursday.
“Just because we are pro-innovation and pro-growth does not mean that you’re going to be able to get away with breaking the law.”
“And this is where I’m talking about not twisting the law to criminalize an asset class or a technology, but I’m talking about lying, cheating, and stealing,” she added.
Pham said that she was pleased the CFTC has been able to decisively “end the regulation by enforcement” against crypto and be able to refocus attention on “catching fraudsters and scammers in our markets.”
Going beyond the law
Pham said that the Biden administration “really went beyond what the law says and what the statute says” on crypto, adding that its approach also harmed traditional derivatives and forex markets.
“When we start to change the rules for […] global derivatives markets because we’re trying to be creative and ‘flex it’ to go after what we perceive to be bad or evil — crypto or blockchain — that is really breaking the fabric of our global markets.”
Uberizing crypto
Yahoo Finance executive editor Brian Sozzi asked Pham to explain her previous comment about “uberizing crypto,” meaning to change an industry through a new service, such as how ride-sharing app Uber disrupted taxis.
Pham explained it means making digital assets so widely adopted and integrated into people’s daily lives that banning or criminalizing them becomes politically impossible, similar to how Uber is now too established to be decisively shut down.
“When something becomes so big, so accepted, so part of our lives, you can’t really take it away then. The public, the people, voters, they won’t let you,” Pham said.
Crypto clarity bill advances
Pham’s comments came in the same week that the crypto market structure bill, the CLARITY Act, passed a House Financial Services Committee vote on Tuesday.
Related: Trump’s CFTC chair pick won’t push president for bipartisan commission
If approved, the bill would clarify which regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission or the CFTC, would oversee crypto, with more authority expected to be handed to the latter.
Pham said she planned to move “to the private sector” to make way for a16z crypto policy head Brian Quintez, who will take the helm pending a Senate vote.
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