Bitcoin set for US regulation?
The US is gearing up to introduce stronger rules for the regulation of virtual currencies, including Bitcoin, amidst concerns about how risky these currencies are.
On 17 October 2017, the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) issued a report in which it confirmed that Bitcoins are commodities which fall under its regulatory remit.
The report, titled ‘A CFTC primer on virtual currencies’, confirmed that, “[t]he CFTC’s jurisdiction is implicated when a virtual currency is used in a derivatives contract, or if there is fraud or manipulation involving a virtual currency traded in interstate commerce.”
The CFTC report makes it clear that the US is moving towards stricter regulation of Bitcoins, and justifies this move by reference to a number of risks associated with virtual currencies. The report identifies four categories of risks with virtual currencies, namely operational risks, cyber security risks, speculative risks and fraud and manipulation risks.
There are particular concerns that virtual currencies are unproven and may not perform as expected, leading to financial loss, and that virtual currency marketplaces operate across various unsupervised platforms, which lack system safeguards and customer protection features. The cyber security systems supporting some of these platforms may be poor and customers run the risk of losing their assets in the event of a cyber attack.
The price of Bitcoins reportedly fell by around 9% in response to the CFTC report.
The CFTC report follows on from reports in August 2017 that the US Congress is drafting a ‘Bitcoin Bill’. The details of this Bill are unknown, though it reportedly seems to be aiming to avoid the use of Bitcoins for illegal activities. In May 2017, the US Government sought to introduce a provision into law which would give money laundering enforcement agencies more powers to supervise the use of Bitcoins.
Thanks for your follows, comments and upvotes!!! Stay tuned for more from @Cryptodailyuk here on SteemIt.
It's clear that the USA is following Russia after Russia officially declared regulation of cryptocurrencies. I suspect other EU countries will also follow. The CFTC authority of Bitcoin is speculative because Bitcoin is not a cryptocurrency involved in derivative transactions/trade. All transactions are done in real time and no specific date is set for the receiver to get bitcoins. Good article.
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Thank you for your feed back. Crypto Daily will alway try to bring only the best from the crypto world news. Subscribe so you don't miss anything , please you can comment on other articles directly on Crypto Daily as well, it's free and we welcoming all the members. Thank you
Downvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit
Congratulations @cryptodailyuk! You have completed some achievement on Steemit and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :
Click on any badge to view your own Board of Honor on SteemitBoard.
For more information about SteemitBoard, click here
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word
STOPDownvoting a post can decrease pending rewards and make it less visible. Common reasons:
Submit