American CFTC regulator pledges to protect bitcoin market from fraudulent schemes

The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) continues to push hard to protect US citizens from cryptocurrency market.

James McDonald, CFTC's director of enforcement, made the following announcement:

“The CFTC will continue to work to protect our markets,including growing digital asset markets such as bitcoin from fraudulent schemes and will work in parallel with our counterparts in criminal law enforcement where needed. "

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Another, but not the last, victim of the CFTC was JohnBarry Thomson, who pleaded guilty to convincing two investors to send him over $ 7 million for a Bitcoin investment scheme that never materialized.

The day before, the Commodity Trading Commissionfutures has filed a lawsuit against the major crypto derivatives exchange BitMEX. The marketplace and its executives are accused of serving an unregistered trading platform and violating anti-money laundering regulations.

CEO of BitMEX Named DefendantsArthur Hayes, co-founders Ben Delo and Samuel Reed, parent companies of HDR Global Trading Limited and 100x Holdings Limited, as well as ABS Global Trading Limited, Shine Effort Inc Limited and HDR Global Services (incorporated in Bermuda). According to the Commission, since its inception in 2014, BitMEX has offered traders illegal cryptocurrency trading services with borrowed funds in the amount of about $ 1 trillion. At the same time, the exchange did not register with the CFTC, and did not bother introducing KYC and AML procedures for its clients.

The crusade against the stock exchange turned seriouslosses - after information about the lawsuit, traders rushed to leave the platform and withdraw their hard-earned money. According to analysts, in the first day after the announcement, over 42,000 bitcoins worth more than $ 443 million were withdrawn from the exchange.It is assumed that 170,000 bitcoins ($ 1.8 billion) were stored on the exchange, which means that almost 25% of those were left from BitMEX. funds on it.