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Crypto Exchange FTX's CEO Visited White House Amid Regulatory Fight
Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX’s regulatory team met with White House policy adviser Charlotte Butash in May.
FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried and his government relations and policy team made a stop at the White House in May as lawmakers in the United States debate on whether to have the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) or the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) act as the crypto industry's primary federal market regulator.
Newly released visitor logs show that Bankman-Fried; Eloria Katz, FTX’s director of government relations and policy; and Mark Wetjen, an ex-CFTC commissioner who is now FTX’s head of policy, visited in mid-May with Biden administration policy adviser Charlotte Butash and counselor Steve Ricchetti. The logs did not detail the subject of the meetings.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW
FTX currently has a proposal before the CFTC that this agency should settle certain crypto-related transactions directly. This application has been staunchly opposed by the traditional finance (TradFi) industry.
During a hearing before the U.S. House Committee on Agriculture, which oversees the CFTC, Terry Duffy, the chief executive of CME Group, said FTX’s proposal for direct settlement was something “that's fraught with danger."
“The risk of this going into other markets is extremely detrimental," he said at the time.
Read more: Derivatives' Old Guard Fights FTX Chief Over Plan to Cut Out Middlemen
For his part, Sam Bankman-Fried has insisted multiple times that FTX has no plans to expand beyond digital assets. He testified before Congress at the same hearing, which occurred on May 12, the same day as the meeting with Ricchetti.
It’s not yet known when a decision on FTX’s proposal to the CFTC is expected.
Bills are currently working their way through the House of Representatives and the Senate that would give the CFTC more crypto market oversight, but progress is slow.
Bankman-Fried and the FTX regulatory team were also joined by Gabriel Bankman-Fried, who runs a political action committee called Guarding Against Pandemics, which aims to improve the government’s response to pandemics, during one of the meetings with Butash.
Sam Reynolds
Sam Reynolds is a senior reporter based in Asia. Sam was part of the CoinDesk team that won the 2023 Gerald Loeb award in the breaking news category for coverage of FTX's collapse. Prior to CoinDesk, he was a reporter with Blockworks and a semiconductor analyst with IDC.
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Crypto Industry Asks President Trump to Stop JPMorgan’s 'Punitive Tax' on Data Access
A coalition of fintech and crypto trade groups is urging the White House to defend open banking and stop JPMorgan from charging fees to access customer data.
What to know:
- Ten major fintech and crypto trade associations have urged President Trump to stop big banks from imposing fees that could hinder innovation and competition.
- JPMorgan's plan to charge for access to consumer banking data may debank millions and threaten the adoption of stablecoins and self-custody wallets.
- The CFPB's open banking rule, which mandates free consumer access to bank data, is under threat as banks have sued to block it, and the CFPB has requested its vacatur.
