Former U.S. Trading Commissioner Bart Chilton is certainly critical to the fact that regulators have largely allowed the cryptocurrency markets to run without oversight.
Last year, Chilton — who ran the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) from 2007 to 2019 — required President Obama to personally instruct the CFTC to discover basic consumer protection legislation, and hubby has repeatedly warned bitcoin devotees that loss of regulation can be a “blind spot” for the industry which enable it to prove to be its undoing.
However, recent developments have created him optimistic which the cryptocurrency markets are maturing and can turn most into the mainstream.
“I think it’s sustainable,” Chilton said?of bitcoin in the interview with Fox Business Network’s Maria Bartiromo, insisting that JPMorgan Chase ceo Jamie Dimon is wrong to call it a “fraud”.
“I don’t know if it’s sustainable at these prices,” he continued, noting that the bitcoin price had experienced a flash crash of virtually $1,000 earlier this week. Bitcoin’s volatility has become a 2010 sticking point for Chilton before, and he reports that if he still chaired the CFTC he’d investigate what he believes is naked market manipulation on bitcoin exchanges.
However, according to him that derivatives exchange operator CME Group’s announcement that it’ll list bitcoin futures contracts is usually a tipping time this regard. Flash crashes won’t “happen to the extent relating to the futures, given that they will have…circuit breakers” that limit the degree to which contract prices can fluctuate using a given day, he explains.
Of course, many bitcoin advocates fear that regulations will stifle innovation. New York’s so-called “BitLicense,” to illustrate, famously lead to an exodus of bitcoin services of your state.
Nevertheless, Chilton maintains that basic consumer protections just like limiting price volatility and reducing counterparty risk are crucial to the nascent technology’s continued growth.
“They must not be crazy, overly-zealous regulations,” he concluded. “I think the bitcoin enthusiasts are beginning to get this, however it is been some time,”