CFTC Grants Full Registration to Bitcoin Swaps Trading Platform

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has granted formal registration to a trading platform that was an early entrant in the market for bitcoin financial derivatives.

TeraExchange, a swaps execution facility based in New Jersey, had been previously operating under a temporary registration order, and today's announcement formally recognizes this designation. The CFTC said it would regulate bitcoin as a commodity in September of last year.

The approval, one of three granted today according to a release from the agency, comes months after the CFTC simultaneously charged and settled with TeraExchange over alleged violations of the Commodity Exchange Act in 2014.

At the time, the agency said that a trade that took place in October of that year, and that was overseen by TeraExchange, constituted wash trading and pre-arranged trading. The firm settled without paying any financial penalties.

In addition to its bitcoin forwards contract – a type of derivative wherein one party agrees to buy or sell an asset at a predetermined price from another party at a certain date – TeraExchange also runs a bitcoin price index.

TeraExchange’s approval comes shortly after another firm looking to offer derivatives trading in bitcoin, LedgerX, received temporary approval from the CFTC to operate last September.

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Correction: This article has been updated to remove an inaccuracy regarding the current status of LedgerX's CFTC registration.