The CFTC, the Commodity Futures Trade Commission, a federal agency that monitors the futures markets, has published its agenda for 2019 and put cryptocurrencies at the top of the list.
The crypto sector will be at the centre of interest of one of the five divisions of the CFTC’s supervisory body, DMO, the Division for Market Oversight, which is responsible for developing safe, transparent, and competitive markets.
The fact that cryptocurrencies have been placed among the top priorities of this division indicates the interest of the CFTC in the growth of an efficient and well-functioning futures market and other derivative financial products linked to virtual currencies.
DMO generally deals, for example, with the control of repositories, the execution of swaps and the goodness of internal control systems, as well as informing the committee’s top management about market developments and the most promising sectors.
At the same time, however, the DMO will inform the CFTC of the development of the industry and which paths are most likely to be taken in the future.
Other targets of the DMO will be the control of the most disruptive trading practices, real-time trading, and some specific market practices, as well as the control of block trading.
The programming and communication of the control forecasts is part of the KISS project, “Keep It Simple Stupid”, announced in February 2018 by the Chairman, Christopher Giancarlo who, referring to the announcement of priorities, has stated:
“This first-ever publication of division examination priorities is in line with Project KISS and other agency initiatives to improve the relationship between the agency and the entities it regulates, while promoting a culture of compliance at our registrants.”
