New $150 million CFTC war chest to end withdrawal delays and weaponize complaints against failing crypto exchanges
A new Senate bill proposes a $150 million appropriation and a Retail Advocate office within the CFTC to address crypto exchange failures.Summary
Senator John Boozman released updated text for the "Digital Commodity Intermediaries Act," aiming to give the CFTC a framework to supervise parts of the spot crypto market routed through intermediaries. A key retail-facing provision establishes an "Office of the Digital Commodity Retail Advocate" within the CFTC, tasked with resolving participant problems, tracking regulatory gaps, and forcing recurring operational failures like delayed withdrawals into the rulemaking process. To fund this oversight and address capacity concerns, the bill authorizes an upfront $150,000,000 appropriation until the CFTC can establish and collect fees from registered digital commodity brokers and exchanges. Furthermore, the bill attempts to define the regulatory boundary for DeFi by focusing on operational control: systems where a person or group retains meaningful leverage over custody, execution, or rules are pulled into regulatory reach, shifting compliance focus to facts like admin keys and governance concentration.
(Source：CryptoSlate)