CFTC recently awarded over $1 million to a whistleblower who reported "improper trading" activities in the crypto market. The tip led to an enforcement action by the CFTC.
Ian McGinley, the CFTC’s director of enforcement, revealed that most whistleblower tips last fiscal year were related to digital assets. He emphasized that addressing illegal activities in the digital asset sector is a top priority for the CFTC, noting that such cases made up nearly half of the agency’s workload in the past year.
The CFTC’s Whistleblower Program rewards individuals who provide information about violations of the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) that result in successful enforcement actions with fines over $1 million.
Whistleblowers receive between 10% and 30% of the penalties collected. Since its inception in 2014, the program has issued about $380 million to whistleblowers and has led to $3.2 billion in sanctions.
This year, the CFTC has taken several enforcement actions against crypto firms. In January, it filed a case against the exchange Debiex for alleged fund misappropriation.
In March, the CFTC and the Department of Justice indicted KuCoin and its founders for operating an unlicensed money transmission business and failing to adhere to anti-money laundering requirements. In May, the CFTC fined Falcon Labs nearly $2 million for operating without proper registration.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has spotlighted a significant acceleration in institutional crypto adoption, driven largely by the surging popularity of exchange-traded funds and increased use of Coinbase Prime among major corporations.
Jefferies chief market strategist David Zervos believes an upcoming power shift at the Federal Reserve could benefit U.S. equity markets.
Anchorage Digital, a federally chartered crypto custody bank, is urging its institutional clients to move away from major stablecoins like USDC, Agora USD (AUSD), and Usual USD (USD0), recommending instead a shift to the Global Dollar (USDG) — a stablecoin issued by Paxos and backed by a consortium that includes Anchorage itself.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has voiced concerns over the rise of zero-knowledge (ZK) digital identity projects, specifically warning that systems like World — formerly Worldcoin and backed by OpenAI’s Sam Altman — could undermine pseudonymity in the digital world.