Altcoin News: CFTC Is Ready to Approve Ethereum Futures

May 6, 2019, by Marko Vidrih on ALTCOIN MAGAZINE

The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is ready to give its approval for the launch of regulated futures on Ethereum if all the necessary conditions are met, CoinDesk writes with reference to a high-ranking official who wished to remain anonymous because the agency does not usually disclose such information.

“I think we can get comfortable with an ether derivative being under our jurisdiction,” said the person, who did not want to be identified because the regulator does not typically publicize decisions to adopt new products. “We don’t do bold pronouncements, what we do is we look at applications before us,” the official said, explaining: “A derivatives exchange comes to us and says ‘we want to launch this particular product.’ … If they came to us with a particular derivative that met our requirements, I think that there’s a good chance that it would be [allowed to be] self-certified by us.”

Tradeblock’s director of digital currency trading software vendor John Todaro claims that launching such an instrument will allow hedge funds to interact with the broadcast without having to worry about keeping it and may even affect the decision of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regarding ETF, also increase the level of confidence in cryptocurrency among retail investors.

Last December, the CFTC asked the public to comment on a number of factors related to Ethereum, starting with the principles of the consensus mechanism and deposit audit capabilities and ending with the potential impact of launching derivative contracts on the cryptocurrency market.

35 representatives of the industry responded to the regulator’s request, including the Chamber of Digital Commerce, Coin Center, Blockchains LLC, Circle, Coinbase, and even self-proclaimed Bitcoin creator Craig Wright.

The Chicago Derivative Exchange ErisX, in turn, drew the attention of the regulator to the fact that the lack of regulatory certainty in some cases limits the possibilities for operating activities by enterprises, especially regulated enterprises, while many unregulated or poorly regulated exchanges and Brokers entered the market to fill the gap. ErisX called on CFTC to approve Ethereum futures, which, according to the company, could help further streamline this market.

Author: Marko Vidrih