In Brief:
- CFTC charges against 14 crypto companies for failure to register as FCM.
- All crypto companies has made false and misleading claims of having registrations with CFTC and NFA membership.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) charges against 14 crypto organizations for not enrolling as Futures Commission Merchants (FCMs).
According to the announcement, all 14 crypto companies have made wrong and misleading claims of having CFTC registration and National Futures Associations (NFA) membership.
“Today’s actions reflect the CFTC’s dedicated efforts to aggressively root out bad actors falsely claiming to hold legitimate registrations and protect the trading public,” said Vincent McGonagle, Acting Director of Division of Enforcement.
Out of fourteen, twelve of the complaints allege that the entities are acting as FCMs, and the other two offer services related to trading in futures and derivative products and also claimed to be registered with CFTC and NFA.
Each grievance looks for orders directing the organizations to cease and desist from violating the Commodity Exchange Act and CFTC guidelines.
According to CFTC 12 companies are not registered as FCM and still provided FCM services. The services like, purchase binary options based on the value of commodities like foreign currencies and cryptocurrencies. Furthermore, it also encourages customers to transfer money or assets to them.
The 12 unregistered companies include Tradingforexpay, Cryptofxtrader, Bitfxprofit, Globalnationfx, MaxForexOption, ProCryptoMinners, ProFX-capitals, Smarter Signals, Prime Expert Trade, BinanceFxTrade, Star Fx Pro. These companies are mainly from New York.
The other two organizations, Climax Capital FX and Digitalexchange24.com have allegedly posted misleading data about their NFA membership and enlistments with the CFTC. The Climax Capital FX is located in U.K., Houston Texas, and Digitalexchange24.com is located in Jasper, Arkansas.
On 29 Sept CFTC imposed a $1.25 million fine on Kranken for illegally offering marginal retail commodity transactions in the digital assets. It also failed to register as a futures commission merchant (FCM).
