(Reuters) -U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission chair Rostin Behnam will step down on the day Donald Trump is scheduled to be sworn in as president, he told the Financial Times in an interview published on Tuesday.
His departure on Jan. 20 would pave the way for Trump to name a successor who could be more aligned with his deregulatory agenda as Washington prepares for a new cadre of federal regulators.
The U.S. derivatives watchdog did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment outside business hours.
A commissioner at the derivatives regulator since 2017, Behnam became acting chair in 2021 and was later given the role permanently.
The CFTC was seen as less harsh toward the cryptocurrency industry when compared with the hardline approach that Gary Gensler as the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission had adopted. Trump has already picked a chief of the SEC.
But the crackdown on crypto exchange Binance for violation of anti-money laundering laws by the CFTC under Behnam ended in one of the largest corporate penalties in history and the exit of its talismanic chief, Changpeng Zhao.
Behnam told the FT that the regulation for the crypto industry remained insufficient. “You still have a large swath of the digital asset space unregulated in the U.S. regulatory system and it’s important… that we fill this gap,” he said.
The CFTC remained “well positioned to be a spot regulator for digital commodity assets”, he told the British newspaper.
The regulator had also squared off with event contract marketplace Kalshi, rejecting the use of derivative to bet on the outcome of political events like the U.S. presidential election.
But a court ruled in Kalshi’s favor, boosting the popularity of election-related betting as Americans headed to the polls in November.
Behnam told the FT he was concerned about the legality and social impact of bets on political and other events.
“The line is going to be very blurred about what is legal, what’s illegal,” he said, as technology and high retail demand drive growth in these markets.
In line with his focus on climate-related market risk, the CFTC in September approved the first guidelines for trading voluntary carbon credit derivative contracts in the U.S., a move expected to bolster confidence in the nascent market.
