CFTC Fines Bitcoin Exchange Bitfinex $75,000 Over Trading Violations
Hong Kong-based bitcoin exchange Bitfinex has settled with the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) following an investigation into its financed trading activities. Bitfinex settled charges that it offered illegal off-exchange financed retail commodities trading, as well as failed to register as a futures commission merchant. Bitfinex did not admit or deny the CFTC findings, the agency said today. According to an order published today by the CFTC, the issues arose owing to how Bitfinex held functional control over funds tied to leveraged or margin trading on the platform. The....
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On Friday, October 15, 2021, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced that it had ordered the company Tether Holdings Limited and Ifinex Inc., the parent company of Bitfinex, to pay fines totaling $42.5 million. The CFTC accuses Tether of “making untrue or misleading statements and omissions of material fact in connection with the U.S. dollar tether token (USDT) stablecoin.”
CFTC Issues Two Fines to Tether and Bitfinex, CFTC Expects ‘Honesty and Transparency in the Developing Digital Assets Marketplace’
The stablecoin issuer....
The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) ordered Bitfinex, a Hong Kong-based bitcoin exchange, to pay $75,000 for offering illegal, off-exchange, financed retail commodity transactions in cryptocurrencies, and for failing to register as a futures commission merchant (FCM) as required by law, according to a CFTC press release. The order requires the exchange to cease and desist from future violations of the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA). CFTC Cites Dodd-Frank Act. From April 2013 to at least February 2016, the CFTC found Bitfinex allowed users to borrow funds from one another to....
The settlement triggered concerns that the CFTC's role in stablecoin regulation could be misunderstood by the public. On Oct. 15, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, or CFTC, handed sister crypto companies Tether and Bitfinex fines totaling $41 million and $1.5 million, respectively, citing violations of the Commodity Exchange Act, or CEA, and of a prior CFTC order.The regulator has found that Tether, the firm behind an eponymous stablecoin, has only held sufficient fiat reserves to back the dollar-pegged asset for 27.6% of time during the 26-month period under review between 2016....
Some notable experts claim that this regulatory framework presented by the CFTC may have prevented Bitfinex from using cold storage. On June 2, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) fined Bitfinex US$75,000 for handling illegal off-exchange financial retail commodity transactions without registering as a futures commission merchant. The CFTC – alongside other regulators – required the exchange to deliver the digital currency directly to their users, instead of holding the private keys controlling the traded coins. The official order stated that Bitfinex “did not actually....
The three co-founders have been ordered to pay hefty fines for what the CFTC calls their involvement in serious violations of regulations and the Commodity Exchange Act. The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York has ordered a total of $30 million civil monetary penalties from the three co-founders of BitMEX crypto derivatives exchange, including former CEO Arthur Hayes.Hayes, Benjamin Delo, and Samuel Reed were each fined $10 million in consent payments according to a statement from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) at the conclusion of a court battle on....