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Homepage > News > Finance > CFTC records $17B monetary relief in 2024, thanks to digital assets The United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has announced a record-breaking $17.1 billion in monetary relief for fiscal year 2024, largely down to enforcement actions involving digital assets.  “The resolution of digital asset cases that resulted in the agency’s largest recovery ever, this record amount included $2.6 billion in civil monetary penalties and $14.5 billion in disgorgement and restitution,” said the CFTC. In FY 2024, the agency brought 58 new actions, including precedent-setting digital asset commodities cases, but one, in particular, was the primary reason for the record haul: the agency’s crackdown on defunct digital asset exchange FTX, which collapsed in November 2022. FTX windfall The FTX case accounted for $12.7 billion in CFTC restitution and disgorgement, becoming the “largest recovery for victims and sanctions in CFTC history.” Formerly one of the world’s leading digital asset exchanges and spearheaded by the poster boy for effective altruism and crypto-advocacy Sam Bankman-Fried, in 2022, it was revealed that FTX had been secretly diverting customer funds to its sister company, Alameda Research, for risky trading. A leaked balance sheet exposed Alameda’s reliance on illiquid FTX-issued native tokens (FTT), sparking investor panic. Binance’s decision to sell its FTT holdings accelerated the crisis, leading to a run on withdrawals that FTX could not fulfill. Attempts to secure bailout funding failed, and FTX was forced to file for bankruptcy in the U.S. in November 2022.  This series of events kicked off the “crypto-winter” of 2022/23, as well as a number of civil and criminal cases. The CFTC’s case involved fraud claims against the exchange, its sister firm Alameda Research, and several executives, including founder Bankman-Fried. The settlement ordered $8.7 billion in restitution and $4 billion in disgorgement, making it the largest recovery in the agency’s history.…

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Filed under: News - @ December 9, 2024 12:21 pm