On October 24, 2022, Rutgers Law, the Wall Street Blockchain Alliance, and Lowenstein Crypto hosted a symposium entitled “Regulating Financial Innovation: The Future of Crypto and Blockchain,” which featured Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Chair Rostin Behnam discussing his agency’s role in regulating the fintech and crypto industries, the jurisdictional issues between the CFTC and the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC), and pending legislation aimed at clarifying whether cryptocurrencies are commodities or securities. Fortune reports that Benham “sought to dispel the narrative of a turf war between his agency and the Securities and Exchange Commission, stating that the “CFTC and SEC would continue to work together” and “pointing to the two agencies’ track record of collaboration, such as with the development and evolution of security futures.”
In addition to Behnam’s remarks, the event included a panel moderated by Lowenstein partner Ethan L. Silver; co-Chair of Lowenstein Crypto and Chair of the firm’s Broker-Dealer and FinTech practices, on Managing Regulatory Risk, which addressed compliance challenges and risks faced by fintech firms and the cryptoasset industry, as well as the multi-level regulatory landscape in the U.S.
Partner Christopher W. Gerold, former Chief of the New Jersey Bureau of Securities and former president of NASAA, hosted a panel on Challenges of Financial Innovation that examined new approaches to financial innovation, the impact of federal regulation, and potential statutory and regulatory reforms.
Law360, Bitcoinist, Coindesk, Dailycoin, Coinspeaker, Yahoo!/Yahoo! Finance, The Block, Insider and Investing.com also covered the event.
