The Commodity Futures Trading Commission approved an amended order of registration for Cboe Clear Digital to provide clearing services for digital asset futures on a margined basis for futures commission merchants, in addition to the fully collateralized futures and fully collateralized swaps previously authorized.
This authorizes Cboe to expand its clearing of futures contracts on crypto assets like bitcoin and ether, while staying within the traditional US futures intermediated market structure. Cboe Clear’s parent company, Cboe Digital Exchange, is registered with the CFTC as a designated contract market.
In a statement, CFTC commissioner Christy Goldsmith Romero said: “Too often in recent years, crypto firms have sought to take a business model or market structure that exists in an unregulated environment and port it over to the regulated environment. The CFTC does not have a window into the risks associated with models or structures in an unregulated environment. Cboe has not done that, instead operating within the parameters of the traditional futures market structure and regulatory framework.”