Dan Berkovitz, ane of three commissioners currently serving at the U.Southward. Article Futures Trading Commission, or CFTC, said while the agency is suited to futures contracts, swaps, and options trading, it would demand additional resources to handle the cash market place for crypto avails.

Speaking at the Managed Funds Association Digital Avails Briefing on Tuesday, Berkovitz said the Commodity Futures Trading Commission enforcement actions in the crypto infinite take been "ambitious," citing a $100 one thousand thousand civil budgetary penalty against derivatives exchange BitMEX. Though he said the agency had the "capability and the expertise" to farther regulate crypto assets, it was currently unable to do then due to a "resource issue."

"If Congress were to decide that our jurisdiction should be expanded to somehow regulate the cash market place, we would actually demand additional resources to do that," said Berkovitz. "Cryptocurrency markets, we're non necessarily looking for more authority without more resource. We're staying in our lane."

Berkovitz noted there was "a lot of coordination" between the agency, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, the Federal Reserve, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Department of the Treasury. The CFTC worked with the Fiscal Crimes Enforcement Network to settle the instance against BitMEX, and has coordinated with the SEC to investigate trading apps dealing in crypto.

"We're all pretty familiar with the lanes that we go in," said Berkovitz, referring to the jurisdictions of the respective agencies. "I think coordination is actually splendid."

The CFTC commissioner also doubled down on his comments from June that decentralized finance platforms were likely illegal nether the Commodity Substitution Act. Co-ordinate to Berkovitz, at that place was a "spectrum of centralization" around projects in the DeFi space that could make them field of study to registration at the CFTC.

Related: CFTC renewed: What Biden's new agency picks concord for crypto regulation

Five commissioners normally serve at the CFTC, but the agency has been shaken upwardly by the departure of former chair Heath Tarbert in January and Brian Quintenz on Aug. 31. Berkovitz has also announced he plans to leave the commission on October. 15, leaving only acting chair Rostin Behnam and Dawn Stump.

Earlier this month, President Joe Biden said he planned to nominate Behnam to presume his position on a permanent footing in improver to filling the remaining seats with law professor Kristin Johnson and former SEC enforcement partitioning senior counsel Christy Goldsmith Romero. All must exist confirmed by the Democrat-controlled Senate, simply the White House has non all the same announced a possible replacement for Berkovitz.