Brian Quintenz, Commissioner at the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), has argued against the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) grounds for not approving a Bitcoin (BTC) exchange traded fund (ETF). Quintenz made his remarks during a panel at the BiPartisan Policy Center in Washington D.C. on Feb. 13.

“There are mathematical ways through a settlement index to design a contract where even if there isn’t a lot of liquidity on one exchange referenced, the index itself is not readily susceptible to manipulation.”

The debate surrounding the approval of Bitcoin ETF appears to be heating up. On the same week that an interview leaked all but confirming the future approval of a BTC Exchange-Traded Fund by the United States SEC, an official for CFTC has weighed in with his two cents.

“they would have to have the majority of volume on multiple exchanges in multiple five minute periods. Could they do it? Maybe. Would we know about it? Immediately.”

Commissioner Peirce contributed to the discussion of her agency’s approach to reviewing proposed crypto-based products, noting that:

“At the SEC we have been unwilling to sign off on a Bitcoin ETF thus far. My concern is that it looks a bit like a merit based approach, judging the underlying Bitcoin market and saying we don’t think these are regulated enough. You know, there’s lots of markets that aren’t regulated, but we nevertheless build products on top of them.”

Quintenz also dove into the semantics of the SEC’s statements blocking BTC ETF approvals, making the point that saying BTC is “readily susceptible” is too broad of a qualification, and that the same terms could apply to nearly any product in the traditional markets if give enough time and effort to manipulate.

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