Bankman-Fried Says Stricter Regulation of Crypto Exchanges Would Be Positive

Sam Bankman-Fried, CEO of crypto derivatives exchange FTX, said tighter regulation of crypto exchanges would have positive effects for investors.

• He made his comments as the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) discuss stricter regulations and frameworks around crypto exchanges.
• Controls on lending products “if done properly, these programs can be great for consumers; if done properly, they can give consumers way higher returns on their assets,” Bankman-Fried said in an interview with Bloomberg.
• Bankman-Fried said a ban on stablecoins would be “sad” given how useful they are. “There’s other sorts of regulatory interventions, which I think would be healthy.”
• FTX is also looking to increase its presence in the non-fungible token (NFT) market, with exchange executives revealing plans to build their own marketplace to compete with OpenSea, the market leader.
• Brett Harrison, president of FTX.US, told Bloomberg the company is in a good position to launch its platform, with the infrastructure already built out.
• He agreed that more regulation could be beneficial for crypto exchanges: “It’s a long time coming and it’s completely necessary – and we’re very much for it.”
• The exchange said its own NFT platform could become available in about a month.

Read more: FTX.US Launches NFT Minting Platform

CORRECTION (SEPT. 20, 14:32 UTC): Fixes attribution on quote in sixth bullet point.