On March 6, 2018, in a fraud proceeding involving a virtual currency product, a New York federal court held that virtual currencies can be regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) as commodities. This ruling marks the first federal judicial endorsement of the CFTC’s position that it had such jurisdiction over virtual currencies, a position that the CFTC first took back in 2015.
Please see our legal update,Federal court holds that CFTC can regulate virtual currencies as commodities, by Norton Rose Fulbright partner Robert Schwinger discussing this important case.