Follow-Up: After the $6.3 Billion Binance Theft, CFTC Chair Offers Exchanges a Federal Registration Option

Washington — Michael Selig, chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), said on CNBC on October 30 that the roughly $6.3 billion theft from Binance "proves our exact point in proposing regulations for crypto markets earlier this month."

Selig said the CFTC wants to offer such exchanges a federal option: "We want to offer a federal option to these exchanges to come and register with the CFTC, and they would be subject to the same sorts of cyber security safeguards that we have in our markets today."

He pointed to the absence of regulation as the underlying issue: "The real issue here is that these are unregulated offshore exchanges, and they don't have the same sorts of safeguards that we have in our financial markets here in the United States." According to multiple reports of the interview, Selig also said the intrusion did not break Ethereum or its smart contracts themselves.

The rules he was referring to are the CFTC's first round of proposed crypto-market regulations, put forward on October 5. In a signed article published on the CFTC's website, Selig wrote that the proposed Regulation Crypto Asset Transactions (Regulation CTX) and Regulation Crypto Asset Markets (Regulation CAM) would set requirements for CFTC-registered exchanges offering those crypto assets for trading, and that registered platforms would be permitted to let retail customers trade on a margined, leveraged or financed basis.

Selig also drew the boundary of that path clearly: unlike the Clarity Act, the regulations would not require crypto assets to trade on CFTC-registered platforms — "We don't have the authority to impose such a requirement without congressional action." Registration, in other words, is a voluntary route for exchanges, not a mandate; requiring every exchange to register would take an act of Congress.

The rulemaking follows the Senate's failure to advance the Clarity Act, after which the CFTC moved to use its existing statutory authority on crypto market structure. In the article, Selig said Congress had considered legislation to clarify the treatment of crypto assets under federal law but failed to send a bill to the president's desk, while the CFTC and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) themselves have statutory authority to issue rules.

In the Binance case itself, the FBI and the U.S. Secret Service have joined the investigation. As GSM reported earlier, the theft is the largest on record in the crypto industry, and Binance has said it will cover user losses in full. Selig's remarks are the first time a U.S. regulator's head has publicly tied the case directly to the proposed federal registration framework, which is still in its comment process; whether the framework is finalized, and how many offshore exchanges would choose to register under it, will depend on the rulemaking process and what Congress does next.

Related: $6.3 Billion Stolen: Binance Suffers Largest Crypto Theft on Record

Related: Follow-Up: FBI and Secret Service Join Binance Theft Probe

Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)

Photo: 图：美国商品期货交易委员会（CFTC）主席 Michael Selig。CFTC 官方照片。 / Chairman Michael Selig of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Official CFTC photo.

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