Half of CFTC's enforcement cases in the last year involved digital assets
The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) released its enforcement results for the 2023 fiscal year on Nov. 7., in which the agency reported 96 enforcement actions. Of these, 47 of those cases were related to digital assets.
Some of those actions are accounted for by charges alleging that Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX, Alameda Research, and three associates carried out a fraudulent commodity scheme that involved misappropriation and illegal offerings, leading customers to lose $8 billion in funds. Those charges are separate from the Department of Justice (DOJ)’s criminal charges, on which Bankman-Fried was recently convicted.
Another CFTC action targeted Binance and related companies, founder Changpeng Zhao, and former chief compliance officer Samuel Lim. Two other actions targeted the failed lending company Celsius and its former CEO, Alex Mashinsky.
Other actions involved lesser-known platforms
The CFTC also targeted Mango Markets hacker Avraham Eisenberg, who is said to have used a “complex manipulation strategy” to steal $110 million of crypto.
The agency additionally won a victory against Ooki DAO in a significant case that allowed the decentralized group behind the platform to be held legally responsible.
The CFTC also targeted Digitex LLC and other parties that illegally offered futures transactions and attempted to manipulate the price of the Digitex Futures token.
Finally, the CFTC described Mirror Trading International’s record-breaking civil monetary penalty, charges against three DeFi platforms, and an enforcement sweep against 14 entities that offered unregistered forex and digital asset services.
The CFTC said that its 96 enforcement actions resulted in more than $4.3 billion in penalties and other fines but did not provide a subtotal for its 47 crypto actions.
The agency released a similar enforcement report in October 2022, at which time it said that it carried out 18 enforcement actions during the fiscal year. There appears to be some overlap in the companies targeted by the agency in each year.
