On October 15, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, or CFTC, He delivered Sister cryptocurrency companies Tether and Bitfinex are fined a total of $ 41 million and $ 1.5 million, respectively, citing violations of the Commodity Exchange Act, or CEA, and a previous CFTC order.
The regulator found that Tether, the firm behind a stablecoin of the same name, has only had enough fiat reserves to back the dollar-pegged asset 27.6% of the time during the 26-month period under review between 2016 and 2018. The agency also stated that Tether violated the law by maintaining part of the reserves in non-fiduciary financial instruments, as well as by combining operating and reserve funds.
In a simultaneous action, the commodity futures watchdog settled charges with Bitfinex for facilitating "illegal off-exchange retail commodity transactions in digital assets with US persons" on its platform, in addition to operating "as a commission trader. Futures, or FCM, without registering as necessary. "
In a gathering statement, CFTC Commissioner Dawn Stump backed the action while expressing concern that the deal could "provide stablecoin users with a false sense of comfort" as they may falsely conclude that the CFTC regulates the currencies. stable and supervises its issuers.
While the CFTC has applied a broad definition of "commodity" to stablecoins in this case, Stump distanced the Commission from regulating this asset class and from having "a day-to-day view of the issues of stablecoin."
Tether issued a rebuttal statement, insisting that he "kept adequate reserves" at all times. The firm explained its decision to come to terms with its willingness to "resolve this matter in order to move forward and focus on the future."
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