Crypto-Critical Senators Warren, Grassley Pressure CFTC To Explain Past FTX Communications

Two lawmakers are pushing the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to explain a series of discussions the regulator held with collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX and its disgraced founder, Sam Bankman-Fried.

In a letter addressed to CFTC chair Rostin Behnam, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Sen. Chris Grassley, R-Iowa, requested "for an accounting of all meetings and correspondence between you and Sam Bankman-Fried during your tenure" as the regulatory agency's chair. The letter was only picked up by cryptocurrency outlets Monday.

The two senators gave Behnam a deadline of April 29 to submit a "full accounting of all meetings, phone calls, and written correspondence" between SBF and the CFTC staff, including Behnam himself. They said the request was necessary "to understand the nature of your repeated correspondence" with Bankman-Fried, who was sentenced last month to 25 years in prison for stealing billions from consumers who used his fallen crypto exchange.

Aside from communication documents between Behnam, CFTC staff and SBF, Warren and Grassley also want the regulator's chair to provide "a timeline of CFTC's knowledge of the fraud committed" by the former crypto darling and his crypto company, FTX's sister hedge fund Alameda, and other associated executives.

Warren and Grassley noted that more than two decades behind bars was an "appropriate" punishment for the tech titan. However, it "provided cold comfort for his victims, who will never be made whole financially." They said it was crucial to safeguard the retirement funds and savings of the American people, and thus, Congress requires that market regulators such as the CFTC to help determine how SBF's crimes were "allowed to happen."

Grassley is known for his callout of the crypto industry in 2021, when he warned the Biden government's acting drug czar that Bitcoin was funneling $76 billion in "illegal transactions" annually.

Warren, on the other hand, is widely known in the crypto sector as one of the industry's biggest critics from Congress. She has co-authored a proposed legislation with Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., that seeks to place crypto firms under anti-money laundering policies.

Last year, she also called on her colleagues to draw up legislation that would shut down the crypto sector after Elliptic released data indicating that cryptocurrencies helped facilitate fentanyl trade in China. "Crypto is helping fund the fentanyl trade, and we have the power to shut that down," she said at the time.