The agency reported that 47 of the 96 lawsuits filed last year were cryptocurrency-related and focused on both well-known and lesser-known targets.
The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced its enforcement results for fiscal year 2023 on Nov. 7, with the agency reporting 96 enforcement actions. Of these, 47 cases were related to digital assets.
Some of these actions stem from allegations that Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX, Alameda Research, and three associates operated a fraudulent commodities scheme involving misappropriation and illegal offerings that resulted in $8 billion in customer funds being lost. These charges are separate from the criminal charges filed by the Department of Justice (DOJ), for which Bankman-Fried was recently convicted.
Another CFTC action targets Binance and related companies, founder Changpeng Zhao and former chief compliance officer Samuel Lim. Two other actions target failed lending firm Celsius and its former CEO Alex Mashinsky.
Other actions involve lesser-known platforms
The CFTC is also targeting Mango Markets hacker Avraham Eisenberg, who is said to have used a “sophisticated manipulative strategy” to steal $110 million in cryptocurrency.
The agency also won a major case against Ooki DAO, holding the decentralized organization behind the platform legally accountable.
The CFTC also targeted Digitex LLC and other parties for illegally offering futures trading and attempting to manipulate the price of the Digitex Futures token.
Finally, the CFTC describes a record-breaking civil penalty against Mirror Trading International, charges against three DeFi platforms, and an enforcement sweep against 14 entities that provided unregistered foreign exchange and digital asset services.
The CFTC said its 96 enforcement actions resulted in more than $4.3 billion in fines and other penalties, but did not provide a subtotal for the 47 cryptocurrency actions.
The agency issued a similar enforcement report in October 2022, saying at the time that it had brought 18 enforcement actions during the fiscal year. There appears to be some overlap in the companies the agency targets each year. #CFTC #数字资产
