Rostin Behnam, chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), announced his resignation. It will come into force on January 20, 2025, the date of the inauguration of the president-elect of the United States, Donald Trump.
According to a release Published on the CFTC’s official site this January 7, Behnam follows in the footsteps of the Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Gary Gensler. It opens the space for the new government to appoint a new official in office who will be responsible for regulating the functioning of financial markets of the country, including the cryptocurrency sector.
«After more than seven years on the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission, I will step down as Chairman on January 20. My last day on the Commission will be Friday, February 7,” states the official’s letter, who is also grateful for having been at the head of the CFTC during this time and claims to have “strengthened the markets.”
«We have worked to address regulatory gaps and uncertainty. We have also responsibly engaged new players to support innovation,” adds Behnam. It also indicates that will work closely with President Trump’s team to ensure a smooth and orderly transition.
Under Behnam’s leadership, the CFTC undertook significant enforcement actions within the cryptocurrency sector, including a $4.3 billion deal with Binance which set an important precedent in ecosystem regulation in the US.
As reported by CriptoNoticias, this agreement included an acceptance of guilt by the CEO and founder of Binance, Changpeng Zhao, who admitted not having complied with anti-money laundering regulations. Due to this, the executive paid a multimillion-dollar fine and served a 4-month sentence, leaving him outside the exchange’s board of directors.
Despite these events, which Behnam describes as “great efforts” and which many saw as part of the Joe Biden government’s regulatory onslaught against the sector, the official distinguished himself by expressing his concern about the lack of sufficient regulatory oversight of the sector. ecosystem.
In fact, it had important differences with the SEC and opposed its regulatory guidelines. For this reason, it rejected the classification as securities (security) that Gensler intended to apply to a large number of crypto assets and proposed that the CFTC become the primary regulator of Bitcoin.
