“The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission posted a record $17.1 billion in monetary relief in fiscal year 2024—$2.6 billion in civil monetary penalties plus $14.5 billion in disgorgement and restitution, with 58 new actions—driven by the $12.7 billion FTX recovery, the largest in the agency's history. In February 2025 the Commission then consolidated its enforcement task forces into two and moved to "stop regulation by enforcement." The CFTC's crypto-commodity jurisdiction rests on the Commodity Exchange Act rather than the securities laws, so a retreat at the SEC does not, by itself, shrink CFTC exposure.”
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission is the crypto enforcer that founders most often overlook—and in fiscal year 2024 it posted the largest enforcement year in its history. The CFTC reported a record $17.1 billion in total monetary relief for FY2024, comprising $2.6 billion in civil monetary penalties and $14.5 billion in disgorgement and restitution, and brought 58 new enforcement actions.1 That record was almost entirely a crypto story: the FTX/Alameda resolution alone accounted for $12.7 billion, the largest recovery for victims and sanctions in CFTC history, and the Binance resolution added roughly $2.85 billion.12 This tracker documents the CFTC’s digital-asset enforcement record from 2021 through mid-2026, the marquee actions behind the numbers, and the 2025 pullback under a new administration.
The most important point for founders: the CFTC’s jurisdiction over crypto commodities and commodity derivatives rests on the Commodity Exchange Act, not the securities laws. When commentators say crypto enforcement is down, they almost always mean the SEC. The CFTC set an all-time record in the same window, and its theories—fraud and manipulation under the CEA’s anti-fraud provision, illegal off-exchange trading, unregistered intermediation, and AML failures—do not run through a securities analysis. The boundary is defined rather than absent: the CEA’s retail-commodity provision expressly excepts “any security,” so for that one theory the CFTC’s reach depends on the asset not being a security.3
Key Takeaways
- The CFTC posted a record $17.1 billion in monetary relief in FY2024—$2.6 billion in penalties plus $14.5 billion in disgorgement and restitution—and brought 58 new actions.1
- That record was crypto-driven: FTX/Alameda accounted for $12.7 billion (the largest recovery for victims and sanctions in CFTC history) and Binance added roughly $2.85 billion.12
- Digital-asset cases hit a record in FY2023, when the CFTC brought 47 digital-asset-commodity actions out of 96 total—a share the Commission described as “more than 49% of all actions filed during that period.”4
- The Ooki DAO judgment held that a DAO organized as an unincorporated association is a “person” under the Commodity Exchange Act and can be held liable, with a $643,542 penalty, permanent trading and registration bans, and an order removing its website from the Internet, entered June 8, 2023.5
- In February 2025 the Commission consolidated its enforcement task forces into two and moved to “stop regulation by enforcement,” refocusing on fraud and victim harm; it issued no year-end results release for FY2025, publishing a narrative Fiscal Year 2025 Enforcement Report in 2026 instead.67
The Numbers: A Record Year Built on a Few Mega-Resolutions
The CFTC reports enforcement results by fiscal year rather than calendar year. Read on that basis, the digital-asset enforcement story is one of steep growth through fiscal 2023, then a paradox in fiscal 2024: total dollars hit an all-time high while the number of new actions fell sharply.
| Fiscal year | Total CFTC actions | Digital-asset actions | Total monetary relief | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FY2022 | 82 | 18 (>20%) | >$2.5 billion | Digital-asset actions exceeded 20% of the docket8 |
| FY2023 | 96 | 47 (record; nearly half) | >$4.3 billion | Digital-asset cases became nearly half the docket4 |
| FY2024 | 58 | ~10 (external estimate) | $17.1 billion (record) | $2.6B penalties + $14.5B disgorgement/restitution; FTX and Binance drive the total18 |
| FY2025 | 13 | Not stated | Not stated | No year-end results release; the FY2025 Enforcement Report lists seven administrative and six civil injunctive actions7 |
The fiscal 2024 figure rewards a close read. Total monetary relief reached a record $17.1 billion even as the number of new actions fell from 96 to 58, because the dollars came from a handful of mega-resolutions booked that year—principally FTX ($12.7 billion) and Binance (~$2.85 billion)—not from case volume.124 The headline is real, but it is concentrated: it reflects the resolution of two of the largest crypto failures in history, not a broad expansion of routine enforcement.
Two honest gaps. The CFTC’s annual enforcement-results releases run FY2022 through FY2024; no comparable release for fiscal 2021 appears in the Commission’s press-release index, and for fiscal 2025 the Commission issued no year-end results release, publishing instead a narrative Fiscal Year 2025 Enforcement Report in 2026 that lists 13 new actions but states no digital-asset count and no monetary total.7 This tracker therefore does not assert a digital-asset action count or a monetary total for either year. Fiscal 2021 nonetheless produced the BitMEX consent order (August 10, 2021), one of the most significant early crypto actions, and the Tether/Bitfinex orders followed on October 15, 2021, in the opening days of fiscal 2022 (both below);910 fiscal 2025 is best understood through the enforcement restructuring described later, not a scorecard.
The Tracker: Notable CFTC Crypto Enforcement Actions (2021-2026)
The table below records notable CFTC digital-asset actions by calendar date of the order or settlement. (Calendar dates are kept separate from the fiscal-year aggregates above to avoid conflating the two.) It is a curated list of significant and precedent-setting matters, not an exhaustive docket; monetary outcomes and dispositions should be confirmed against the primary CFTC release before being relied on.
| Defendant / Case | Key date | Core allegation | Monetary outcome | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BitMEX (HDR Global Trading et al.) | Aug 10, 2021 | Illegal unregistered derivatives platform; AML failures | $100 million civil penalty9 | Resolved (entities) |
| Tether & Bitfinex | Oct 15, 2021 | Misrepresenting that Tether was fully backed; illegal off-exchange retail commodity transactions | $42.5 million ($41M Tether + $1.5M Bitfinex)10 | Resolved |
| bZeroX / Ooki DAO | Settled Sep 2022; default judgment Jun 8, 2023 | Operating an illegal trading platform; unregistered futures commission merchant; failure to adopt a customer identification program and KYC/AML procedures; DAO liability | $643,542 penalty (Ooki DAO) + permanent trading and registration bans + website-removal order5 | Resolved (default judgment) |
| Binance & Changpeng Zhao | Order entered Dec 14, 2023 | Willful evasion of the CEA; illegal derivatives operation; AML/supervision failures | ~$2.85 billion: $1.35B penalty + $1.35B disgorgement (Binance); $150M (Zhao)2 | Resolved |
| FTX / Alameda Research | Consent order Aug 7, 2024 | Fraud; misappropriation of customer funds | $12.7 billion ($8.7B restitution + $4B disgorgement)1 | Resolved (largest in CFTC history) |
| Celsius / Alexander Mashinsky | Complaint Jul 13, 2023; Celsius consent order Jul 17, 2023; Mashinsky consent order Jun 12, 2026 | Fraud and material misrepresentations; Celsius charged as an unregistered commodity pool operator and Mashinsky as an unregistered associated person | No monetary relief; permanent injunction plus permanent trading and registration bans (Mashinsky); parallel criminal sentence of 12 years11 | Resolved |
| Voyager / Stephen Ehrlich | Complaint Oct 12, 2023; consent order Sep 15, 2025 | Commodity-pool fraud; registration failures | $750,000 disgorgement to Voyager customers through the bankruptcy liquidation12 | Resolved |
Reading the table: the early actions (BitMEX, Tether) established that the CFTC would police crypto trading platforms and stablecoin representations directly; the Ooki DAO judgment extended that reach to a DAO organized as an unincorporated association; and the Binance and FTX resolutions delivered the record-setting dollars of fiscal 2024.
A note on Ooki DAO: the CFTC charged the bZeroX founders, who settled, and then pursued the successor Ooki DAO itself, securing a June 8, 2023 default judgment holding that Ooki DAO, as an unincorporated association, is a “person” under the Commodity Exchange Act, ordering it to pay a $643,542 penalty, imposing permanent trading and registration bans, and ordering its website removed from the Internet.5 The CFTC has described it as a precedent-setting decision, and it rejects decentralization as an automatic bar to CFTC liability; but as a default judgment in which the court made no findings of fact, its precedential weight is limited.
The 2025 Pullback: “Stop Regulation by Enforcement”
The CFTC’s posture shifted markedly in 2025, paralleling the SEC’s pivot under Acting Chairman Mark Uyeda and then Chairman Paul Atkins. On February 4, 2025, Acting Chairman Caroline D. Pham announced a reorganization of the Division of Enforcement’s task forces, consolidating them—nine as of the FY2023 results release, when the CFTC described two newly established task forces alongside “seven additional DOE task forces”4—into two, a Complex Fraud Task Force and a Retail Fraud and General Enforcement Task Force, expressly so that the simplified structure “will stop regulation by enforcement” and refocus the division on fraud and victim protection.6
The reorientation went further than structure. On April 8, 2025, Acting Chairman Pham praised the Department of Justice’s policy “ending the practice of regulation by prosecution” of the digital-asset industry, set out in the Deputy Attorney General’s April 7, 2025 memorandum, Ending Regulation By Prosecution, and directed CFTC staff to adhere to it.13 On March 28, 2025, CFTC staff had withdrawn two digital-asset advisories, Staff Advisory No. 18-14 on virtual-currency derivative product listings and Staff Advisory No. 23-07 on clearing digital assets.14 And on September 23, 2025, Pham launched an initiative for the use of tokenized collateral, including stablecoins, in derivatives markets.15 All are signals of a clarity-and-innovation posture rather than an enforcement-first one. The Commission issued no year-end enforcement-results release for fiscal 2025; its Fiscal Year 2025 Enforcement Report, published in 2026, describes a year in which the Division “took decisive steps to end the era of regulation by enforcement.”7
What did not change is the core of the CFTC’s authority. Fraud, manipulation, misappropriation of customer funds, and willful registration violations remain fully enforceable: the Complex Fraud Task Force takes “complex fraud and manipulation across all asset classes,” and the Retail Fraud and General Enforcement Task Force handles “retail fraud” and “general enforcement matters involving other violations of the Commodity Exchange Act.”6 The FY2025 report names five priority areas, among them retail fraud and willful violations of anti-money-laundering and know-your-customer rules.7 The shift narrows enforcement priority and discretion; it does not surrender jurisdiction.
A Framework for Reading CFTC Risk
The 2021-2026 record supports a straightforward way to think about CFTC exposure. The Commission’s crypto authority runs along theories that arise under the Commodity Exchange Act, so they survive the registration debate that dominates SEC commentary. The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, H.R. 3633, which passed the House on July 17, 2025 and was reported by the Senate Banking Committee with a substitute amendment in June 2026, would, if enacted, redraw the CFTC/SEC line by statute; it makes the distinction more consequential, not less.16
| CFTC theory | What triggers it | 2025-2026 posture | Practical exposure |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fraud / misappropriation | Misleading customers; misusing customer funds | Core priority; survived the restructuring | High; the durable enforcement center |
| Manipulation / spoofing | Distorting a crypto-commodity or derivatives market | Active | High |
| Illegal off-exchange / unregistered derivatives | Offering leveraged, off-exchange, or futures-like products to U.S. customers without registration | Active | High; the BitMEX/Binance theory |
| AML / supervision failures | Operating a platform without an effective KYC/AML program | Active (often parallel to DOJ) | High; criminal exposure alongside |
| Decentralization defenses | Operating as a DAO or protocol | Rejected as an automatic shield (Ooki DAO) | Live; structure is not immunity |
The single most dangerous misreading is to treat a quieter SEC as a quieter CFTC. The two agencies operate on different statutes. The CFTC set its all-time record in the same window the SEC retreated, and its fraud and market-integrity theories—the ones that produced the FTX and Binance dollars—never depended on a securities classification.
What This Means for Founders and Platforms
Three conclusions follow from the data.
First, if you operate a trading venue, a derivatives-like product, or anything that touches Bitcoin or Ether as a commodity, the CFTC is a primary regulator regardless of the SEC’s posture. The BitMEX and Binance theories—offering leveraged or off-exchange products to U.S. persons without registration, paired with weak AML—remain the CFTC’s most reliable enforcement template.
Second, decentralization is not a structural defense. The Ooki DAO judgment means a DAO organized as an unincorporated association can be a liable “person” under the Commodity Exchange Act. Separately, in the companion administrative settlement the CFTC found bZeroX’s two founders liable as controlling persons of bZeroX and as members of the Ooki DAO for debts arising from the DAO’s violations—an association-membership theory, not a holding about governance-token holders generally.5 Building toward the SEC’s sufficient-decentralization concept does not, on its own, escape the CFTC.
Third, the 2025 restructuring is an opportunity to invest in the controls the CFTC still enforces—accurate disclosures, honest reserve and backing representations, real KYC/AML, and clean handling of customer funds—rather than to assume the risk has passed. The theories that produced the record year are the theories that survived the pullback.
This tracker is a factual reference, not legal advice. Enforcement priorities and individual dispositions change; confirm any figure against the primary CFTC release, and consult counsel on how the current environment applies to a specific product, platform, or token.
Related Resources
- Crypto Enforcement Tracker (2024-2026): SEC and CFTC Actions
- CFTC Crypto Commodities Regulation: A Compliance Guide
- The CLARITY Act: How the CFTC/SEC Jurisdiction Line Is Drawn
- The SEC/CFTC Token Taxonomy: The Five Categories
- Token Launch Legal Checklist: Avoiding SEC Enforcement
- SEC Wells Notice Lawyer for Crypto Companies
Sources and Citations
Footnotes
-
U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, “CFTC Releases FY 2024 Enforcement Results,” Release No. 9011-24 (Dec. 4, 2024), available at https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/9011-24. States record monetary relief of “over $17.1 billion” comprising “$2.6 billion in civil monetary penalties and $14.5 billion in disgorgement and restitution,” and 58 new actions “including precedent-setting digital asset commodities cases.” Reports the FTX/Alameda “$12.7 billion judgment” as “the largest recovery for victims and sanctions in CFTC history,” and Binance civil monetary penalties of $1.35 billion plus $1.35 billion in disgorgement, with $150 million against Changpeng Zhao. The FTX figures are those of the consent order in CFTC v. Bankman-Fried, No. 1:22-cv-10503-PKC (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 7, 2024), ECF No. 43, ¶¶ 75-76 ($8,700,000,000 in restitution and $4,000,000,000 in disgorgement, jointly and severally against FTX Trading and Alameda). The $17.1 billion is an agency-wide total across all asset classes and includes recoveries in previously filed actions; confirm the figures against the release. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7
-
U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, “CFTC Charges Binance and Its Founder, Changpeng Zhao, with Willful Evasion of Federal Law and Operating an Illegal Digital Asset Derivatives Exchange,” Release No. 8680-23 (Mar. 27, 2023), available at https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/8680-23; “Binance and Its CEO, Changpeng Zhao, Agree to Pay $2.85 Billion for Willfully Evading U.S. Law, Illegally Operating a Digital Asset Derivatives Exchange, and Other Violations,” Release No. 8825-23 (Nov. 21, 2023), available at https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/8825-23 (proposed consent order requiring Binance to “disgorge $1.35 billion of ill-gotten gains and pay a $1.35 billion civil monetary penalty to the CFTC,” and obliging Zhao to “pay a $150 million civil monetary penalty to the CFTC”); “Federal Court Enters Order Against Binance and Former CEO, Zhao, Concluding CFTC Enforcement Action,” Release No. 8837-23 (Dec. 18, 2023), available at https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/8837-23; Consent Order for Permanent Injunction, Civil Monetary Penalty, and Other Equitable Relief, CFTC v. Zhao, No. 1:23-cv-01887 (N.D. Ill. Dec. 14, 2023), ECF No. 80, ¶¶ 71, 74-75. The Binance components total approximately $2.85 billion. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4
-
The jurisdictional point rests on the Commodity Exchange Act and the orders cited in this tracker rather than on any securities-law analysis. CFTC v. Ooki DAO, Order Granting Motion for Default Judgment at 7-11 (N.D. Cal. June 8, 2023), ECF No. 76, adjudicates claims under 7 U.S.C. §§ 6(a), 2(c)(2)(D), and 6d(a)(1) and 17 C.F.R. § 42.2 with no securities question presented, and notes that “[t]here are also no facts suggesting that the transactions involved securities” (Order at 10), because the retail-commodity provision’s exceptions, 7 U.S.C. § 2(c)(2)(D)(ii), include “any security” (Order at 9 n.7). The commodity status of bitcoin and ether is a court-entered finding on consent in CFTC v. Zhao, No. 1:23-cv-01887 (N.D. Ill. Dec. 14, 2023), ECF No. 80, ¶ 26 (Binance offered derivatives in “bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH), litecoin (LTC), and other digital assets that are commodities as defined under Section 1a(9) of the Act, 7 U.S.C. § 1a(9)”). The CEA’s anti-fraud provision, 7 U.S.C. § 9(1), and Regulation 180.1 are the theory of the Tether order and the FTX and Mashinsky consent orders cited below. 7 U.S.C. § 1a(38) provides: “The term ‘person’ imports the plural or singular, and includes individuals, associations, partnerships, corporations, and trusts.” Statutory text current through Pub. L. 119-102 (July 12, 2026); note that 7 U.S.C. § 1a(9) now excludes a payment stablecoin issued by a permitted payment stablecoin issuer under the GENIUS Act from the definition of “commodity.” ↩
-
U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, “CFTC Releases FY 2023 Enforcement Results,” Release No. 8822-23 (Nov. 7, 2023), available at https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/8822-23. States that the Division of Enforcement “filed 96 enforcement actions,” that the CFTC “brought 47 actions involving conduct related to digital asset commodities, representing more than 49% of all actions filed during that period,” that the year included “a record setting number of digital asset cases,” and that actions resulted in “over $4.3 billion in penalties, restitution and disgorgement.” The release also records that the Division “established two new task forces in FY 2023” and lists “seven additional DOE task forces,” the basis for the nine-task-force count in the text; the count is as of that release, not as of February 2025. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4
-
Commodity Futures Trading Comm’n v. Ooki DAO, No. 3:22-cv-05416-WHO, Order Granting Motion for Default Judgment (N.D. Cal. June 8, 2023), ECF No. 76 (default judgment); Judgment (N.D. Cal. June 8, 2023), ECF No. 77. The order holds that the CEA defines “person” to include “individuals, associations, partnerships, corporations, and trusts,” 7 U.S.C. § 1a(38), and that on the well-pleaded facts Ooki DAO is an unincorporated association subject to suit under the CEA (Order at 7-8); it adjudicates claims under 7 U.S.C. §§ 6(a), 2(c)(2)(D), and 6d(a)(1) and 17 C.F.R. § 42.2 (Order at 8-11). The Judgment imposes a $643,542 civil monetary penalty (Order at 14; Judgment at 1), permanent trading and registration bans, and an order removing the Ooki DAO website from the Internet (Judgment at 1-4). The companion administrative order is In re bZeroX, LLC, CFTC No. 22-31 (Sept. 22, 2022). See also U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, “Statement of CFTC Division of Enforcement Director Ian McGinley on the Ooki DAO Litigation Victory,” Release No. 8715-23 (June 9, 2023), available at https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/8715-23, which describes the ruling as “a precedent-setting decision” and records that the 2022 administrative order “found that bZeroX’s founders were liable as controlling persons of bZeroX and as members of the Ooki DAO for any debts arising from the Ooki DAO’s violations of the law.” ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4
-
U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, “CFTC Division of Enforcement to Refocus on Fraud and Helping Victims, Stop Regulation by Enforcement,” Release No. 9044-25 (Feb. 4, 2025), available at https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/9044-25. Announces consolidation of the Division of Enforcement’s task forces into the Complex Fraud Task Force and the Retail Fraud and General Enforcement Task Force, quoting Acting Chairman Pham that “[t]his simplified structure will stop regulation by enforcement and is more efficient.” The release states that the Complex Fraud Task Force “will be responsible for all preliminary inquiries, investigations, and litigations relating to complex fraud and manipulation across all asset classes,” and that the Retail Fraud and General Enforcement Task Force “will focus on retail fraud and handle general enforcement matters involving other violations of the Commodity Exchange Act.” The release does not state the number of prior task forces. ↩ ↩2 ↩3
-
U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, CFTC Fiscal Year 2025 Enforcement Report (2026), available at https://www.cftc.gov/media/13966/FY2025EnforcementReport/download (undated on its face; the posted file is dated May 2026). States that “the Division took decisive steps to end the era of regulation by enforcement,” that the Division “has five priority areas,” and, in Appendix A, that “[t]he CFTC’s new FY 2025 enforcement actions include seven administrative cases and six civil injunctive cases,” listing thirteen actions; the report states no digital-asset action count and no aggregate monetary figure. The statement that no year-end results release issued for fiscal 2021 or fiscal 2025 rests on a survey of every page of the CFTC press-release index for calendar 2021, 2022, 2025, and 2026 (through September 4, 2026): the only annual results release in those four years is Release No. 8613-22 (FY2022, October 20, 2022). The FY2023 and FY2024 results releases, Nos. 8822-23 and 9011-24, issued in 2023 and 2024, years the survey did not need to cover. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5
-
U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, “CFTC Releases Annual Enforcement Results,” Release No. 8613-22 (Oct. 20, 2022), available at https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/8613-22. States that the CFTC “filed 82 enforcement actions” and “brought 18 actions involving conduct related to digital assets, representing more than 20% of all actions filed during FY 2022,” obtaining “over $2.5 billion in restitution, disgorgement and civil monetary penalties.” The “~10” digital-asset-action figure for FY2024 in the table above is from external analysis—Renato Mariotti, Holly Campbell, Maggie DePoy & Karl Stahlfeld, “CFTC’s High-Profile Crypto Cases Lead to Massive Recoveries but Far Fewer Enforcement Actions,” Paul Hastings LLP Client Alert (Dec. 17, 2024), available at https://www.paulhastings.com/insights/client-alerts/cftcs-high-profile-crypto-cases-lead-to-massive-recoveries-but-far-fewer-enforcement-actions—which states that “[o]f the ten cases filed in 2024 that involved digital asset-related allegations, the commission only highlighted two of them … .” It is not a CFTC-stated count and does not use the CFTC’s “digital asset commodities” methodology; it is labeled accordingly. ↩ ↩2
-
U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, “Federal Court Orders BitMEX to Pay $100 Million for Illegally Operating a Cryptocurrency Trading Platform and Anti-Money Laundering Violations,” Release No. 8412-21 (Aug. 10, 2021), available at https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/8412-21. Consent order entered in CFTC v. HDR Global Trading Ltd., No. 1:20-cv-08132-MKV (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 10, 2021), ECF No. 62, imposing a $100,000,000 civil monetary penalty jointly and severally against HDR Global Trading Limited, 100x Holdings Limited, ABS Global Trading Limited, Shine Effort Inc Limited, and HDR Global Services (Bermuda) Limited, of which up to $50 million may be offset by payments made or credited under the parallel FinCEN Consent to Assessment of Civil Monetary Penalty. The order resolves the action as to the five entities; the CFTC’s litigation against BitMEX’s individual founders continued as of the release. ↩ ↩2
-
U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, “CFTC Orders Tether and Bitfinex to Pay Fines Totaling $42.5 Million,” Release No. 8450-21 (Oct. 15, 2021), available at https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/8450-21. In re Tether Holdings Ltd., CFTC Docket No. 22-04 (Oct. 15, 2021) (finding violations of Section 6(c)(1) of the Act and Regulation 180.1(a)(2) and imposing a $41,000,000 civil monetary penalty); In re iFinex Inc., BFXNA Inc. & BFXWW Inc., CFTC Docket No. 22-05 (Oct. 15, 2021) (finding violations of Sections 4(a) and 4d(a)(1) and, as to BFXNA, Part VII.A of the Commission’s June 2, 2016 order, and imposing a $1,500,000 civil monetary penalty). Both orders issued October 15, 2021, in fiscal 2022. ↩ ↩2
-
U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, “CFTC Charges Alexander Mashinsky and Celsius Network, LLC with Fraud and Material Misrepresentations in Massive Commodity Pool Scheme Involving Digital Asset Commodities,” Release No. 8749-23 (July 13, 2023), available at https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/8749-23; U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, “CFTC Resolves Action Against Celsius Founder,” Release No. 9256-26 (June 18, 2026), available at https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/9256-26. The court entered a consent order of permanent injunction against Celsius Network, LLC on July 17, 2023. The consent order against Mashinsky was entered June 12, 2026, CFTC v. Celsius Network, LLC, No. 1:23-cv-06008-ER (S.D.N.Y.), ECF No. 34; it permanently enjoins him from violating Section 6(c)(1) of the Act and Regulation 180.1, imposes permanent trading and registration bans, dismisses Counts II, III, and IV of the complaint with prejudice, and imposes no civil monetary penalty, restitution, or disgorgement. In the parallel criminal action Mashinsky pled guilty on December 3, 2024 to one count of commodities fraud and one count of securities fraud and was sentenced on May 8, 2025 to 12 years in prison, a $50,000 fine, and forfeiture of $48,393,446. U.S. Attorney’s Office, S.D.N.Y., “Founder Of Celsius Sentenced To 12 Years For Fraud And Market Manipulation” (May 8, 2025), https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/founder-celsius-sentenced-12-years-fraud-and-market-manipulation. ↩
-
U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, “CFTC Charges Former Chief Executive Officer of Digital Asset Platform with Fraud in Massive Commodity Pool Scheme,” Release No. 8805-23 (Oct. 12, 2023), available at https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/8805-23; U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, “CFTC Obtains Court Order to Return $750,000 to Voyager Victims in Fraud Action,” Release No. 9122-25 (Sept. 15, 2025), available at https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/9122-25. The September 15, 2025 consent order requires Ehrlich to pay $750,000 in disgorgement to Voyager customers through the Voyager bankruptcy liquidation procedures, imposes a three-year registration ban and a three-year injunction against managing or advising trading for third parties, and permanently enjoins him from violating certain anti-fraud provisions of the CEA and CFTC regulations. ↩
-
U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, “Acting Chairman Pham Lauds DOJ Policy Ending Regulation by Prosecution of Digital Assets Industry and Directs CFTC Staff to Comply with Executive Orders,” Release No. 9063-25 (Apr. 8, 2025), available at https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/9063-25 (Pham “praised a recently-announced Justice Department policy ending the practice of regulation by prosecution that has targeted the digital asset industry in recent years,” and directed staff “to adhere to the Justice Department’s policy on digital assets enforcement priorities and digital assets charging considerations set forth in the Deputy Attorney General’s memorandum, Ending Regulation by Prosecution, dated April 7, 2025”); Memorandum from the Deputy Attorney General to All Department Employees, Ending Regulation By Prosecution (Apr. 7, 2025), available at https://www.justice.gov/dag/media/1395781/dl?inline= (“The Department of Justice is not a digital assets regulator.”). ↩
-
U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, “CFTC Staff Withdraws Advisory on Virtual Currency Derivative Product Listings,” Release No. 9059-25 (Mar. 28, 2025), available at https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/9059-25 (the Division of Market Oversight and Division of Clearing and Risk “are withdrawing CFTC Staff Advisory No. 18-14, Advisory with Respect to Virtual Currency Derivative Product Listings, effective immediately”); U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, “CFTC Staff Withdraws Advisory on Review of Risks Related to Clearing Digital Assets,” Release No. 9060-25 (Mar. 28, 2025), available at https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/9060-25 (the Division of Clearing and Risk “is withdrawing CFTC Staff Advisory No. 23-07, Review of Risks Associated with Expansion of DCO Clearing of Digital Assets, effective immediately”). ↩
-
U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, “Acting Chairman Pham Launches Tokenized Collateral and Stablecoins Initiative,” Release No. 9130-25 (Sept. 23, 2025), available at https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/9130-25 (“the CFTC will launch an initiative for the use of tokenized collateral including stablecoins in derivatives markets”). ↩
-
Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, H.R. 3633, 119th Cong. (2025), sponsored by Rep. J. French Hill, introduced May 29, 2025; passed the House July 17, 2025 by a vote of 294-134 (Roll no. 199); received in the Senate and referred to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs September 18, 2025; reported with an amendment in the nature of a substitute and placed on the Senate Legislative Calendar (Calendar No. 423) June 1, 2026; motion to proceed and cloture motion on the motion to proceed presented August 8, 2026. Not enacted as of September 4, 2026, and the Senate is proceeding on a substitute text rather than the House-passed bill. See https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/3633/all-actions. On the House-passed text, see Arnold & Porter, “Clarifying the CLARITY Act: What To Know About the House Crypto Market Structure Bill and Its Path to Law” (Aug. 26, 2025), https://www.arnoldporter.com/en/perspectives/advisories/2025/08/clarifying-the-clarity-act (the Act “would grant the CFTC exclusive jurisdiction over anti-fraud or anti-manipulation enforcement in digital commodities, including in cash or spot transactions”). Confirm current legislative status before relying on it. ↩
