CFTC restricts the acceptance, storage and use of cryptocurrency assets by FCMs

[mlawson71]

The United States’ Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has restricted the acceptance, storage and use of cryptocurrency assets by Futures Commission Merchants (FCMs). The agency explained the necessity for the new rules with the risks  involved with holding onto such assets – they are vulnerable to hackers, in particular the $150 million theft from the cryptoexchange KuCoin.

Another reason for it was the fact that such assets are held in unregulated or underregulated institutions. As such the CTFC introduced a requirement according to which FCMs have to store client cryptocurrency assets separate from their other ones in a bank, another FCM or a trust company. 

Another new rule involves the deposit and trade of cryptos – a client has to deposit a crypto and then trade the same crypto. They cannot, for example, deposit Bitcoin and use it to trade Litecoin.

Source

After the KuCoin hack that sort of regulation was inevitable, it seems.