Outgoing US Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Rostin Behnam made his last push to regulate the cryptocurrency industry but warned it would take time.
Behnam gave his final public speech on Wednesday at a Brookings Institution event in Washington, DC, repeating his call for Congress to fill a gap in crypto regulation. During prepared remarks, he said he would continue to advocate for the CFTC to fill that gap even after he is no longer chairman.
“My position has not changed, and I will continue to advocate for the CFTC to fill this gap if Congress so chooses — even after I have moved on,” he said in a prepared speech.
Asked later by a reporter for The Wall Street Journal about what next year might look like, Behnam said crypto legislation would take time, noting a new presidential administration and new makeup in Congress.
He said the legislation will take six to 10 months, and subsequent regulation by federal agencies will take another year. A successor has not yet been named to replace Behnam, but he said the acting chairman will play a role in a future rule change. During changes in the president’s administration, acting chairs often temporarily lead agencies until they are named chair or someone else is.
“I think there will be a change in strategy day one with the acting chiefs in how they approach regulation,” Behnam said. “There’s been a lot of talk from members of the existing commissions about sandboxes and creating environments where crypto participants can essentially do their business without, what they see as, the fear of enforcement or regulation because it’s a controlled environment.”
When a new presidential administration takes office, the agency’s leaders, including Behnam, usually announce their resignations. The CFTC Chair announced on Tuesday that he would step down from his presidency on Jan. 20, the day of President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration. Others, including the Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Gary Gensler and the Federal Reserve’s vice chairman for surveillance Michael Barrhave announced similar redundancies.
During his tenure as CFTC chairman, Behnam urged Congress to address the lack of crypto regulation at the federal level while his agency brought enforcement actions against major players in the digital asset industry, including now-bankrupt exchange FTX.
Lawmakers have been working on some bills to regulate the crypto industry at large, including one led by retired Rep. Patrick McHenry (RN.C.) and another from Sens. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), John Boozman (R- Ark.), which would establish a legal definition for digital commodities and place their trading under the CFTC’s jurisdiction. The Senate bill was received pushback from decentralized finance advocates and backed by former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried.
Legislative efforts by lawmakers, including Stabenow and McHenry, are “not all perfect,” Behnam said Wednesday, but are still good steps.
“I don’t think the status quo, which is where we are now with the existing statutes, is going to solve the problem,” Behnam said.
