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Author: daniel kuhn, Coindesk; compile: Deng Tong, Bitchain Vision Realm
Summer Mersinger, a member of the American Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), is one of the few US regulators who are willing to defend the cryptocurrency industry and condemn her.She will give a speech at the 2024 Consensus Conference in Austin, Texus on May 30.
Coindesk interviewMersinger, discussed the competition between CFTC and the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), how did her institutions decide which law enforcement actions and her views on various issues, including CME may enter the spot Bitcoin market, emergingGaming market, etc.
Q: The Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission have launched the territory battle for cryptocurrencies to some extent. Is this point accurate?
Mersinger:I think there must be questions about who has appropriate power.Some people are willing to cooperate between these two institutions. In fact, Director Pierce and I will speak together at the consensus meeting.We have some similar views.But this is a struggle, because sometimes the controversy has been calm -whether it is law enforcement cases or what we call our fraud and manipulating law enforcement agencies -we see that the SEC starts to ask questions, as if this belongs to them, it belongs to them.Jurisdiction.So there will be some nervousness.To a large extent, the lack of regulatory clarity has caused nervousness.
Q: As a supervisor who is some favorable to cryptocurrencies, you are in a few position.Can you explain why you are willing to take risks?
Mersinger:Generally speaking, some of the reasons I enter the government is that although people’s lives need government -but we don’t want to overcome their rights.We also want to ensure that the rules are clear so that people can abide by the law.This is an area where there is a real problem.Many people are very interested in investing or trading cryptocurrencies, but we have not provided any clear information -we make it very vague.This is not what the government should do.It caused one situation,People rely on the words of regulators, and the rules of the game are constantly changing during the game.
I still think that it is important to say loudly, letting people know that whether you like cryptocurrencies, this is not the point.The key is that the regulatory agency does make it all confusing and difficulty.
Q: Do you agree with Pham Commissioner’s idea of investigating the CFTC law enforcement operation on the government accountability office?
Mersinger:It is difficult to request another agency to intervene and understand the internal operation of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.I understand the thought of Pham, I thinkWe should not supervise through law enforcementThis is the same.But I also think this is a leadership issue.I respect Chairman Behnam very much, but this is a matter of political direction of the White House.Therefore, what we need to ask is not the audit, but:Is it institution or the current political leadership is promoting our agenda and widespread financial innovation?
Q: I don’t want to let you say more, but does this indicate that if Trump is re -elected in November, the regulatory environment will improve?
Mersinger:There are obvious differences between President Biden and former President Trump, so this does promote the regulatory agenda.therefore,If the leadership changes, you will definitely think that there are new policies and new regulatory agenda.
Q: I am curious how much do you have a positive dialogue with Congress on the potential encryption legislation with Congress?
Mersinger:They use us as a resource.We have talked with members of the House Financial Services Committee and the Agricultural Committee, and of course, as well as members of the Senate, and cooperate with them to find out the ambiguity in the law, or have the opportunity to define and clear the supervision.It provides us with help and professional knowledge. It is helpful to make these dialogues because they also want to ensure that we can execute the laws they pass.They may have great intentions, but if the agency cannot implement it, it is useless.
Q,:This is very meaningful.Do you think it is necessary to customize the encryption legislation or a new explanation of existing laws?
Mersinger:Some people think that we can use the current legal power (whether it is the US Securities and Exchange Commission or the American Commodity Futures Commission) to supervise — this is where we supervise through law enforcement operations.I disagree.The only way to avoid law enforcement operations is to let Congress issue a statement “this is a method for processing cryptocurrencies.”
In addition to legislation, the two institutions also need to sit down to make some joint rules.We did this with Dodd Frank, and of course we can do this here.This is an important part of ensuring that people know which regulatory agency will supervise them and which door to enter.No doubt,If the legal amendment is not amended to ensure the clarification of jurisdiction, each institution will try to go in different directions.
Q: I know that each law enforcement operation is mainly driven by facts.But I think the construction of these cases may be very interesting.What is the process for people like Avi Esenberg?
Mersinger:Without talking about any specific law enforcement cases, many cases reporters reporters reported that “I think someone violates the law.”The victims may say that they have lost money, but I think their approach is illegal.We have a considerable law enforcement investigator and a team of lawyers who started to file a case.When the committee receives our information, the facts are usually very clear and they are consistent with the law.We are a bit like a jury to decide whether the facts meet our legal requirements.
Many of these work are done by the law enforcement team. They may interview and report documents and other employees to obtain documents.Each case will spend a lot of time before submitting the committee to vote.There are also many cooperation between various institutions, whether it is the Ministry of Justice, the state regulatory agency, or the US Securities and Exchange Commission.Therefore, if they have the opportunity to file a lawsuit in accordance with multiple regulations or different regulators, they will cooperate.If they can work together, it will be more efficient for the government.They can also report each other.If we have to get all leaders, I think this will be very difficult.
You will hear many numbers about encrypted law enforcement cases.I think this is a bit unfair, because many such cases are just ordinary fraud; some people have stolen other people’s money, some claim to buy cryptocurrencies, but they do not actually buy cryptocurrencies.So we have seen that this situation is related to the hot topic at that time.I want to say that the theme changes every few years -it is foreign currency and metal. We see a lot of gold fraud.Cryptocurrencies are now popular.Many cases are described as cryptocurrency fraud, but this is just fraud with encrypted packaging.So tomorrow may be artificial intelligence fraud.
Q: I hardly want to say that, but considering how many fraudulent behaviors are centered on cryptocurrencies, do you think you should take more law enforcement operations?
Mersinger:I think when this is directly fraud, yes.When you encounter such a situation, there is a difference here: Some people just take your money and claim to invest in something, but never do this -there is no doubt, who has power.
However, if there are policy issues around a certain activity, and how our regulations adapt to the activity, it is where I am a little nervous.For example, if we are studying the DEFI agreement and we say that they violate our regulations, but if we have never really said how our regulations are suitable for DEFI, it may be difficult.
We started to define and explain according to court cases, because sometimes you find cases of adverse actors.Sometimes people want to abide by the law, but there is no clear method to abide by the law.That’s why I think we are the best to formulate rules.
Q: What do you think about SEC implicitly said that Ethereum is a product when the 2021 year is launched?
Mersinger:So this is an interesting issue in development.We do have futures products traded in Ethereum.I do believe that if someone thinks that Ethereum is a securities, it will make people doubt what it will happen.Our [American Commodity Futures Trading Commission] has been supervising these contracts.They operate well, we are not worried.We think this is a clear field, but now we are not sure whether it is clear, which is dangerous.
The law is a bit strange; the product can be a lot of other things -you can have a securities.The way of naming the law is a bit tricky.butWe have said that we believe this is a product, and we will supervise it within the jurisdiction of CFTC because it is a derivative product.For me, this has clearly stipulated that we should not ask new problems around clear policies.
Q: Considering the interrelatedness of these assets, would you think it would be better if there was a unified institution like a British FCA?
Mersinger:I always hesitate to recommend any new government agencies or add more government.History shows that strengthening government departments has never been solved.But I do think that sometimes you must better formulate regulations.Cryptocurrencies are not exactly suitable for any financial category of us, so we must fine -tune some laws.This is what Congress did, so we can easily do this without any new institution.
Q: Why does the commodity futures trading committee oppose the gaming market so?
Mersinger:This is a very tricky topic because there are many slight differences.Therefore, these markets, we call the event contract, is part of the regulations we added based on the Dodge Frank Act.Overall, it is relatively new, but we have seen people’s interest in these contracts for some time, and this interest must be increasing.The supervision method formulated by Congress for us shows that these contracts are usually possible, as long as they do not involve any themes that violate federal laws such as games, war, terrorism, and assassination.Many people do not like election contracts and want to include it into this list.
Then there is a public interest part, trying to determine whether the contract will violate public interests.We do not necessarily oppose these markets, but there must be some protection.Congress instructs us to set up some protection, we are trying to build them.You can see this from our recent voting.My feeling is that if this is the route you want to take, you still have to measure the public interest of each contract. This is why I oppose it, because we restrict the election as a category.
In the end, we want to create a framework. If you register here, then you will not encounter legal problems every time you try to do new things.We just encountered some difficulties in this method.Congress tried to help us clarify the problem, but there must be many things to leave for regulators to solve it.
Q: The British “Financial Times” reported today that Zhishang Institute is considering listing Bitcoin spot transactions, not just Bitcoin futures.Is this you support it?
Mersinger:You know, I also heard about this this morning, so I haven’t made those conversations.I want to talk to CME and our employees to understand what this means.There are many questions about regulatory rights and other issues.So now, I have no positive or negative opinions. Honestly, as a regulator, I should not do this.As long as they follow the rules, they should be able to make these market decisions.We strive to be a principle -based supervisor, let our registered entities manage the market, because this is what they do.Our job is only to ensure that everyone complies with the rules.
Quickly answer
What position do you have for decentralized finance?
I have no position anyway.I just think that as a regulator, we should formulate clear rules for DEFI.
How to view “enough decentralization?” This sentence
I think that full decentralization is a bit overvalued, because I don’t know what it means.This may mean that you are not decentralized.
What do you look forward to consensus most?
Dialogue with many stakeholders.This is an opportunity to talk to those we usually can’t see with us in Washington. It is really special to gather them in one place.
