The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) this week announced fines and charges against three decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols operating in the country.
in one press release On Thursday, September 7, the trading regulator published Were referred to the Opyn, ZeroEx (0Ex) and Deridex protocols, committed various violations against American jurisprudence.
Specifically, the CFTC is accusing two of the three DeFi protocols mentioned, Deridex and Opyn not registered as an exchange protocol and as a contract market. Even if they have not implemented a customer identification program as required by the Bank Secrecy Act.
The three protocols named by the CFTC are now facing allegations illegally offering merchandise retail transactions used in cryptocurrencies. This is to the detriment of American investors.
In the words of Ian McGinley, director of compliance at the CFTC, these protocols believe that illegal transactions become legal when executed through smart contracts.
“But they don’t,” he complained. “The DeFi space may be novel, complex and evolving, but we will evolve with it and aggressively pursue those who operate unregistered platforms that allow Americans to trade digital asset derivatives,” he added.
Fines
Based on the allegations, the CFTC announced separate fines against each protocol. Opyn was ordered to pay $250,000. 0Ex with $200,000 and Deridex with $100,000. In total, The CFTC imposed a specific fine of more than half a million dollars on these protocols.
In addition to the fines, the CFTC required DeFi protocols to “refrain from violations of the Commodity Exchange Act.” and the regulations of this federal agency.
The fines and accusations against DeFi protocols remind us that, although this sector has shown progress in regulation in several countries, it remains an area of uncertainty for operators.
The latter, according to analyst Juan Mendieta Villegas, for whom the rules being developed in the United States, Europe, Hong Kong and other regions of the world to address DeFi, They do not clarify what the treatment should look like for products and services that come from decentralized finance.
“The rules are a good step, but when it comes only to interacting with smart contracts, the reality is that the uncertainty is still there. There is more clarity around building and creating services that leverage digital assets,” Mendieta said at an event last July, as reported by CriptoNoticias.