Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart believes the approval of spot Ethereum ETFs was likely influenced by political decisions rather than purely financial considerations.
“OKX Web3 has been testing a similar product since 2023, but we chose not to launch mainnet due to regulatory concerns,” Xu wrote.
The CFTC had charged Deridex with illegally offering digital asset derivatives and failing to register as a swap execution facility or a futures commission merchant. The crackdown extended to two other protocols, Opyn and ZeroEx, for offering leveraged crypto transactions to retail users without proper registration.
Xu cited the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s 2023 enforcement action against Deridex as a key reason for the holdback.
“Regulatory enforcement has fundamentally shifted — hopefully the industry can soon gain much-needed clarity.” Hyperliquid, which launched in 2024, has quickly become one of DeFi’s top platforms, recording $319 billion in trading volume in July alone.
“While we celebrate the growth of onchain perps, we should not forget the CFTC enforcement against Deridex in 2023,” Xu added.
Among the latest appointees to DAMS are Katherine Minarik of Uniswap Labs, Avery Ching of Aptos Labs, James J. Hill of BNY, and Ben Sherwin of Chainlink Labs, key figures in blockchain infrastructure, legal policy, and institutional crypto strategy. JPMorgan’s Scott Lucas has been named co-chair of the subcommittee, joining Franklin Templeton’s Sandy Kaul. They replace Caroline Butler in the role.
The CFTC recently expanded its Digital Asset Markets Subcommittee to include crypto industry leaders.
