Share this article
Senior CFTC Official Who Set Bitcoin Futures Policy Is Leaving: Report
Amir Zaidi, director of the CFTC's Division of Market Oversight, is to leave the regulator within weeks, according to Bloomberg Law.
Updated Sep 13, 2021, 11:18 a.m. Published Aug 9, 2019, 8:06 a.m.
The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is losing another senior level staffer.
Bloomberg Law reports Friday that a number of sources have said Amir Zaidi, director of the CFTC's Division of Market Oversight (DMO), is to leave the regulator within weeks.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW
Don't miss another story.Subscribe to the Crypto Daybook Americas Newsletter today. See all newsletters
Zaidi had been in the post since early in 2017 and was the official responsible for setting policy on bitcoin futures trading and redrafting the rules on OTC swaps markets.
Before joining the CFTC in 2010, Zaidi was an associate in the Corporate and Securities Group at international law firm Arnold and Porter LLP. Previously, he'd also held financial analyst roles at Goldman Sachs and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Vincent McGonagle, the CFTC's current deputy director of Enforcement will likely serve as acting DMO director after Zaidi's departure, a Bloomberg Law source said. McGonagle had served as DMO director until Zaidi took over the role.
The news comes just a week after it was announced that the director of the CFTC's experimental fintech initiative will step down.
According to a statement released Aug. 2, LabCFTC’s director and chief innovation officer, Daniel Gorfine, will leave his post to pursue a job in the private sector.
In his two years with the agency, Gorfine spearheaded the LabCFTC project, released educational materials on virtual currencies and launched an accelerator program to trial internal blockchain applications.
CFTC image via Shutterstock
More For You
What to know:
- As of October 2025, GoPlus has generated $4.7M in total revenue across its product lines. The GoPlus App is the primary revenue driver, contributing $2.5M (approx. 53%), followed by the SafeToken Protocol at $1.7M.
- GoPlus Intelligence's Token Security API averaged 717 million monthly calls year-to-date in 2025 , with a peak of nearly 1 billion calls in February 2025. Total blockchain-level requests, including transaction simulations, averaged an additional 350 million per month.
- Since its January 2025 launch , the $GPS token has registered over $5B in total spot volume and $10B in derivatives volume in 2025. Monthly spot volume peaked in March 2025 at over $1.1B , while derivatives volume peaked the same month at over $4B.
More For You
Traders mull the bottom as bitcoin returns to week's lows below $86,000
One analyst isn't quite ready to call a bottom, but says bitcoin is surely in an oversold condition.
What to know:
- Bitcoin's early rally Wednesday seems a faint memory as the price has returned to the week's lows.
- Precious metals continue to get bid, with silver rushing to yet another new record and gold closing in on an all-time high.
- One analyst cautioned against reading too much into the current bitcoin price action due to year-end positioning and tax considerations.
Top Stories
