Ranking Member of the House Committee on Agriculture Glenn Thompson (R-PA) released a revised draft of the Digital Commodity Exchange Act (DCEA). The DCEA, initially introduced in September 2020, attempts to build on the existing commodity markets’ regulatory framework “to bring certainty to developers, intermediaries, and customers in the digital asset marketplace by establishing clearly defined rules.”
Steven Lofchie, partner at law firm Cadwalader, wrote: “This is a serious attempt at establishing a framework for the trading of digital assets. The fact that it is largely a voluntary regulatory scheme makes it particularly attractive as it affords the government an opportunity to demonstrate that federal regulation can bring benefits to the table in support of a market (one of those benefits is the avoidance of state money service business regulations).
“Of course, there are still many points that would need to be fleshed out. It is not clear on a first read how the proposal would distinguish between those digital assets that are securities and those that are not. The CFTC and the SEC should weigh in on the proposal in light of recent assertions that they support finding a framework for the trading of digital assets.”