Bitcoins can be considered an asset or speculative investment rather than a currency [Yermack 2013]. The tradability of Bitcoin units on specialized trading platforms has made practical for investment professionals. The launch of Bitcoin-linked funds by global investment banks increased the accessibility to the Bitcoin market. Importantly, the launch of futures contracts based on Bitcoin prices in late 2017 enhanced the legitimacy of Bitcoin as an investment and moved it into the mainstream of the financial world. Gold, and to a lesser extent, commodities, in general, act as effective diversifiers against the downside risk in equity markets (for both advanced and emerging economies). Investors purchase bullion with gold futures and exchange-traded funds, and are thus exposed to the price variation in gold, and a hedge against stock price volatility. The oil market is one of the most volatile commodity markets.  In a derivatives marketplace, individuals and businesses everywhere are able to lock in a future price by putting it into a binding contract. These products are called futures and options – contractual agreements to buy or sell an amount of something at a fixed price at a future date. When people and companies come to futures exchanges to buy and sell commodities and financial products, what they’re really trying to do is remove risk from their business or make money as an investor when prices fluctuate. An investment asset which provides not just diversification, but also a safe haven during stress periods is particularly valuable in construction of an investment portfolio.  Various market indices are used to benchmark commodity trades. The S&P Goldman Sachs Commodity Index (GSCI), is a world production-weighted index including 24 exchange-traded futures contract commodities from five sectors -energy products, industrial metals, agricultural products, agricultural and livestock products, and precious metals. This is a widely tracked benchmark commodity index and the most liquid commodity futures index and can play the role of a diversifier asset. It can also be used as a measure of general price movement and inflation in the world economy. Bitcoins were the first virtual currency and consequently much of the regulatory discussions have been framed in terms of bitcoin, though other blockchain applications may have quite different characteristics and uses. In the following section the terminology related to futures, options and swaps is reviewed. The US regulatory framework for commodities is then briefly summarized, and recognized roles in commodity markets noted. The current US regulatory framework for commodities recognizes virtual currencies as a commodity, enabling the issuance of futures and options on these currencies. Some of the effects of this as a financial asset are then considered. This article concludes with some recent controversies arising from this regulatory treatment of crypto currencies as commodities.

Futures, Options & Swaps Terminology

Clearing: The procedure through which a Clearing House becomes the buyer to each seller of a futures contract and the seller to each buyer. The Clearing House assumes the responsibility of ensuring that each buyer and seller performs on each contract. Futures exchanges process millions of trades each day. With so many orders coming at once, you need a lot of checkpoints to make sure everything goes smoothly.

Clearing firm: A company that works directly through an exchange’s Clearing House to execute trades on behalf of futures market participants.  clearing firms check the financial strength of both parties to the trade, whether they’re a big institution or an individual trader. They also provide access to trading platforms, where the buyer and seller agree on the price, quantity, and maturity of the contract. Then, when the contract is cleared by matching these offsetting (one buy, one sell) positions together, the Clearing House guarantees that both buyer and seller get paid. This offsetting or “netting” process takes risk out of the financial system as a whole.

Clearing House: The division of a futures exchange that confirms, clears and settles all trades through an exchange. Clearing Houses act as a neutral counterparty for every single trade that crosses a futures exchange, assuming responsibility for ensuring buyer and seller performance on each contract.

Commodity: Any product approved and designated for trading or clearing in accordance with the rules of an exchange. Also: may refer to a physical commodity.

Counterparty: The individual or company (i.e., the buyer or seller) on the opposite side of any trade.

Delivery: The changing of ownership or control of a commodity once a futures contract date expires.

Derivative: A financial instrument, such as a futures or options contract, whose value is based upon a physical commodity or other financial instruments.

Exchange: A central marketplace with established rules and regulations where buyers and sellers meet to trade futures and options contracts.

Financial Future: A future contract whose value is based upon financial instruments such as a stock index, interest rates or foreign currency exchange rates. Generally, three types of financial futures – foreign currency market, interest rate market, equity index market.

Future: A standardized contract for the purchase and sale of financial instruments or physical commodities on a futures exchange for future delivery.

Futures Exchange: A central marketplace where buyers and sellers come together to trade futures and options contracts.

Hedge: To buy or sell a futures contract in order to lock in the price of the underlying commodity at a later date.

Option: A contract that gives the bearer the right, but not the obligation, to buy or sell a futures contract at a specified price within a specified time period.

Over-The-Counter Derivative: Futures and options contracts with terms that do not necessarily adhere to those of a standardized futures contract.

Over-The-Counter Trading: Trades that take place outside of a formal futures exchange. OTC derivatives let traders go beyond standardized futures products and customize the terms of the contracts they trade. Usually, the traders work through a network of dealers who negotiate these agreements on a one-to-one basis. Though it offers greater freedom and potentially lower trading costs, OTC trading may leave both parties at risk for counterparty default if they are not using the services of a clearing house.

Self-Regulatory Organization: (SRO) Futures exchanges and regulatory entities that set rules and regulations and have internal functions that perform complex checks and balances to adhere to the principles they set.

Settlement: The delivery of cash or commodities in exchange for payment, as specified by the terms of the underlying contract.

US Regulatory Framework for Commodities

The Commodity Exchange Act (1936) (CEA) provides for Federal regulation of all commodities and futures trading activities. It requires all futures and commodity options to be traded on organized exchanges. The CFTC was created by the Act and its powers substantially revised in the Commodity Futures Trading Commission Act (1974) which expanded the scope beyond listed agricultural products. The mission of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission is to promote the integrity, resilience, and vibrancy of the U.S. derivatives markets through sound regulation. A trillion-dollar market for interest rate and currency swaps emerged in the 1980s. These transactions were similar to forward delivery futures contracts for agricultural commodities. The Futures Trading Practices Act (1992) gave the CFTC the power to exempt some transactions from the requirement for exchange trading. The Commodity Futures Modernization Act (CFMA) [ CMFA 2000] modernized regulations for over the counter (OTC) transactions between “sophisticated parties” so these would not be regulated as “commodities” under CEA or “securities” under federal securities laws. The definition of “commodity” in the CEA is broad. It can mean a physical commodity, such as an agricultural product (e.g., wheat, cotton) or natural resource (e.g., gold, oil). It can mean a currency or interest rate. The CEA definition of “commodity” also includes “all services, rights, and interests . . . in which contracts for future delivery are presently or in the future dealt in.” Beyond instances of fraud or manipulation, the CFTC generally does not oversee “spot” or cash market exchanges and transactions involving virtual currencies that do not utilize margin, leverage, or financing. The CFTC looks beyond form and considers the actual substance and purpose of an activity when applying the federal commodities laws and CFTC regulations

The CFTC’s Advisory Committees were created to provide input and make recommendations to the Commission on a variety of regulatory and market issues that affect the integrity and competitiveness of U.S. markets. The committees facilitate communication between the Commission and U.S. futures markets, trading firms, market participants, and end-users. The committees currently include: 

• Agricultural Advisory Committee
• Energy and Environmental Markets Advisory Committee
• Global Markets Advisory Committee
• Market Risk Advisory Committee
• Technology Advisory Committee
• CFTC-SEC Joint Advisory Committee

LabCFTC is the focal point for the CFTC’s efforts to promote responsible FinTech innovation and fair competition for the benefit of the American public. LabCFTC is designed to make the CFTC more accessible to FinTech innovators. It serves as a platform to inform the Commission’s understanding of new technologies. Further, LabCFTC is an information source for the Commission and the CFTC staff on responsible innovation that may influence policy development. There are two major components of LabCFTC- Guidepoint and CFTC 2.0

GuidePoint accepts a wide range of inquiries ranging from specific registration or compliance requirements to broader questions about the CFTC’s regulatory framework – e.g., how it may accommodate new systems, business models, or services made possible through responsible FinTech innovation. Within the CFTC, inquiries may be referred to the appropriate groups and subject matter experts with the aim to ensure that any response is both accurate and tailored to the entity’s circumstances.

CFTC 2.0 is intended to provide the agency opportunities to engage with new technologies to discover ideas and technologies that have the potential to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the agency in carrying out its day-to-day activities.

The CFTC has published a number of documents as guidance on Cryptocurrencies:

• CFTC Backgrounder on Oversight and Approach to Virtual Currency Futures Markets Jan 4, 2018
• CFTC Primer on Virtual Currencies, Oct 17, 2017
• Customer Advisory: Understand the Risks of Virtual Currency Trading, Dec 15, 2017
• Statement on Self-Certification of Bitcoin Products by CME, CFE and Cantor Exchange, Dec 1, 2017
• CFTC Bitcoin website
• CFTC Backgrounder on Self-Certified Contracts for Bitcoin Products

The CFTC first found that Bitcoin and other virtual currencies are properly defined as commodities in 2015. In the Matter of: Coinflip, Inc., d/b/a Derivabit, and Francisco Riordan, CFTC Docket No. 15-29 (Section 1a(9) of the Act defines “commodity” to include, among other things, “all services, rights, and interests in which contracts for future delivery are presently or in the future dealt in.” 7 U.S.C. § 1a(9). The definition of a “commodity” is broad. See, e.g., Board of Trade of City of Chicago v. SEC, 677 F. 2d 1137, 1142 (7th Cir. 1982)). Bitcoin and other virtual currencies are encompassed in the definition and properly defined as commodities. CFTC authority to regulate virtual currency as a commodity was affirmed in CFTC v. McDonnell  (2018). The CFTC has a number of other causes of action it can pursue, e.g., Price manipulation of a virtual currency traded in interstate commerce; pre-arranged or wash trading in an exchange-traded virtual currency swap or futures contract; certain schemes involving virtual currency marketed to retail customers, such as off-exchange financed commodity transactions with persons who fail to register with the CFTC. CFTC has had several successful prosecutions for ponzi schemes in the context of virtual currency (e.g., CFTC v Dean ,CFTC vs My Big Coin Pay Inc.) and for  future exchanges not registered with the CFTC as a SEF or DCM  (e.g., In re BXFNA Inc. d/b/a Bitfinex, Dkt. No. 16-19 ).

The National Futures Association (NFA) is the industrywide, self-regulatory organization for the U.S. derivatives industry. Designated by the CFTC as a registered futures association, NFA strives to safeguard the integrity of the derivatives markets, protect investors and ensure their members meet their regulatory responsibilities. NFA’s formal designation as a “registered futures association” was granted by the CFTC on September 22, 1981. NFA began its regulatory operations in 1982. CFTC regulations also require, with few exceptions, CFTC registered firms to be NFA Members. The CFTC has delegated registration responsibility to NFA. The NFA requires additional reporting on virtual currency transactions:

• Additional Reporting Requirements Regarding Virtual Currency Futures Products for FCMs for Which NFA is the DSRO (Dec. 6, 2017)
• Additional Reporting Requirements For IBs That Solicit or Accept Orders in Virtual Currency Products (Dec. 14, 2017)
• Additional Reporting Requirements for CPOs and CTAs That Trade Virtual Currency Products (Dec. 14, 2017)

Internationally, the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) has a similar role to NFA; reducing counterparty credit risk, increasing transparency, and improving the industry’s operational infrastructure in support of its primary goals; to build robust, stable financial markets and a strong financial regulatory framework. While not specifically focussed on cryptocurrencies, ISDA has published a number of documents related to smart contracts.

Recognized Roles in Commodity Markets

NFA Commodity Pool Operator (CPO) A commodity pool operator (CPO) is an individual or organization that operates a commodity pool and solicits funds for that commodity pool. A commodity pool is an enterprise in which funds contributed by a number of persons are combined for the purpose of trading futures contracts or options on futures, retail off-exchange forex contracts, or swaps, or to invest in another commodity pool.

NFA Commodity Trading Adviser (CTA) A commodity trading advisor (CTA) is an individual or organization that, for compensation or profit, advises others, directly or indirectly, as to the value of or the advisability of buying or selling futures contracts, options on futures, retail off-exchange forex contracts or swaps. Indirect advice includes exercising trading authority over a customer’s account or giving advice through written publications or other media.

On-exchange trading is the trading of commodities and contracts that are listed on an exchange. Off-exchange trading, also known as over-the-counter (OTC) trading, is the trading of commodities, contracts or other financial instruments that are not listed on-exchange. Off-exchange trading can occur electronically or over the phone. Some foreign currency (forex) contracts are traded off-exchange.

Designated Contract Market (DCM) – an exchange that may list for trading futures or option contracts based on all types of commodities and that may allow access to their facilities by all types of traders, including retail customers. Some DCMs have been operating for many years as traditional futures exchanges, while others are new markets that were only recently designated as contract markets by the CFTC. CFTC staff perform regular reviews of each DCM’s ongoing compliance with the required core principles called Rule Enforcement Reviews.  CFTC maintains a List of DCMs.

Derivatives Clearing Organization (DCO) – an entity that enables each party to an agreement, contract, or transaction to substitute, through novation or otherwise, the credit of the DCO for the credit of the parties; arranges or provides, on a multilateral basis, for the settlement or netting of obligations; or otherwise provides clearing services or arrangements that mutualize or transfer credit risk among participants. A DCO that seeks to provide clearing services with respect to futures contracts, options on futures contracts, or swaps must register with the CFTC before it can begin providing such services. The CFTC maintains a List of DCOs.

Futures Commission Merchant (FCM) – an intermediary that solicits or accepts orders for futures or options contracts traded on or subject to the rules of an exchange; and in or in connection with such solicitation or acceptance of orders, accepts money, securities, or property (or extends credit in lieu thereof) to margin, guarantee, or secure any trades or contracts that result or may result.

Introducing Broker (IB) – an intermediary that solicits or accepts orders for futures or options contracts traded on or subject to the rules of an exchange; and does not accept any money, securities, or property (or extend credit in lieu thereof) to margin, guarantee, or secure any trades or contracts that result or may result.

Swap Execution Facilities – Section 733 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (“Dodd-Frank Act”) adopts new Section 5h of the Commodity Exchange Act (“CEA”), which provides that no person may operate a facility for the trading or processing of swaps unless the facility is registered as a swap execution facility (“SEF”) or as a designated contract market (“DCM”). The CFTC maintains a List of SEFs.

Effects of Cryptocurrency Commoditization

Several organizations (e.g., Cantor Exchange, CBOE Futures Exchange (CFE), Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME). LedgerX, Nadex, TeraExchange) had registered with the CFTC as exchanges for Bitcoin Futures, Options or swaps. The Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) has announced that it is dropping any new bitcoin futures contracts (XBT). This may have been due to low trading volumes. Bitcoin futures (BTC) are still live at CME. You can hedge Bitcoin exposure or harness its performance with a futures product. Based on the growing interest in cryptocurrencies and a strong demand for more tools to manage bitcoin exposure, CME Group plans to launch options on Bitcoin futures (BTC) in early 2020. The CME settles its contracts against an index called BRR (Bitcoin reference rate) which is an average of spot prices quoted on different exchanges. CME created a Bitcoin Reference Rate (BRR) and CME Bitcoin Real-Time Index (BRTI) as a standardized reference rate and spot price index, respectively, with independent oversight to accelerating the professionalization of bitcoin trading. CME has been generating BRR and BRTI rates since November 2016 with several bitcoin exchanges and trading platforms providing pricing data, including Bitstamp, Coinbase, itBit, Kraken, and Gemini. (See CME’s Bitcoin Reference Rate Analysis). Note that trading in Bitcoin futures doesn’t imply trading in Bitcoin itself. Bitcoin Futures Quotes are available online from the CME.

While the commodity markets for crude oil and gold are characterized by considerable short-run supply-side uncertainty (e.g., political events, surprise discoveries, and technological developments).  Uncertainty of this type does not exist on the supply-side of Bitcoin. Thus, the observed price fluctuations of Bitcoin can be interpreted as demand shocks. [Ali 2014)] asserted that “digital currencies have meaning only to the extent that participants agree that they have meaning.” A change in this “meaning” due to changes in demand is not different from a demand shock in the crude oil market. Empirical analysis reveals that Bitcoin price dynamics are particularly influenced by extreme price movements. This influence is found to be larger than in the markets for crude oil and gold. Among the explanations for this is certainly the immaturity of the market [Gronwald 2019]. Cryptocurrencies have taken a further step in the direction of commodities with the emergence of cold storage [Geman 2019]. Cold storage means generating and storing the crypto coins’ private keys in an offline environment in order to avoid the online vulnerability to hacking. The most popular cold storage options are:

a) A paper wallet containing a pair of private/public keys printed on a piece of paper, with keys generated offline securely;

b) A hardware wallet is an electronic device, but the most robust cold storage choice for cryptos. The three popular options offered on the market are Ledger Nano, Trezor and Keepkey;

c) A USB drive can also be a cold wallet, easy to obtain but with the risk that anyone having access to the USB can access the crypto

Call options give buyers the possibility of getting a financial exposure to Bitcoin prices while puts provide the classical protection to those owning the cryptocurrency. Bitcoin futures were launched by the Chicago Board of Options Exchange and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange group on December 18th, 2017. The total market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies was 828 billion dollars in January 2018 (just after two Exchanges launched futures), 200 billion in August 2018 and 272 billion in September 2019. Note that the fraction of bitcoin in the total market capitalization was 86% in January 2017, went to 34% in January 2018 and back to 68% in September 2019. Futures trading drove up the price of Bitcoin immediately after the announcement day. This reaction started to decrease noticeably following the launch of the futures contracts. Such an outcome seems in line with the trading behavior that typically accompanies the launch of futures markets for an asset. [Bouoiyou 2019]. CME Futures are subject to significant regulatory oversight by the (CFTC), and are protected from counterparty risk by the Clearing House of the Exchange. This is a desirable feature since more than 36 cryptocurrency trading venues had closed by the end of December 2018. Moreover, they partly allow avoiding the fragmentation that sometimes prevailed in the Bitcoin spot market: during periods of high volatility, prices observed for Bitcoins on different platforms over identical time periods could diverge by more than 10%. Storability and convenience yield enables the derivation of a (valuable) spot-forward relationship. Applying the traditional options pricing mechanism of the Black-Scholes Model in this setting provides bounds on option prices [Geman 2019].

Some commodities provide diversification benefits while others may not be useful for portfolio diversification.  Bitcoin adds portfolio diversification benefits above and beyond other commodities. The correlation between bitcoin and other assets is exceptionally low and the inclusion of bitcoin dramatically improves the risk-adjusted returns of the portfolios. Bitcoin’s inclusion in optimal portfolios leads to a better risk-return ratio. Bitcoin can play an important role in enhancing the efficiency of an investor’s portfolio. These findings are robust to expanding and rolling estimation windows, transaction costs, the 2018 downturn in Bitcoin, different values of risk aversion, alternative indices, as well as to alternative portfolio construction techniques and to simulated data and when short selling is permitted, although the analysis is still based on the historical mean asset returns as return forecasts and the historical return variances and covariances [Platanakis 2019]. Historical returns, however, can be poor estimates of future returns, especially given Bitcoin prices’ large volatility. The inclusion of Bitcoin (BTC) in oil, gold, and equity portfolios substantially reduced the portfolio risk. BTC and gold markets have respectively negative and weak conditional correlations with oil. The correlation between S&P GSCI and BTC as well as gold is close to zero. [Al-Yahyaee 2019]. The Dollar is a better alternative to hedge oil implied volatility (OVX) than Bitcoin. Bitcoin outperforms gold and commodity in hedging OVX. Bitcoin is a better hedge to demand-side oil shocks in comparison to the Dollar. Bitcoin hedges the demand-side shocks better that supply-side shocks [Das 2019]. This does not necessarily mean that Bitcoin is a superior asset over others to hedge oil-related uncertainties. The hedging capacity of different assets is conditional upon the nature of commodity risks and market situation. A single asset cannot hedge downside risks in different economic situations and market states.  Investors may prefer different investment instruments to hedge downside risks in different economic situations and market states.

An asset is labeled a strong safe-haven if there is evidence of predictability from a stock index to that asset in the low quantiles of both the stock and the asset returns, and the sign of this predictability is negative. This ensures that extreme negative stock returns are followed by future positive returns in the (safe-haven) asset, i.e. the movement of the (safe-haven) asset in the opposite direction of that of the stock index ensures that the losses occurring in stock investments are counterbalanced. In contrast, an asset is labeled a weak safe-haven if there is no evidence of predictability from a stock index to that asset in the low quantiles of both the stock and the asset returns [Shahzad 2019]. Bitcoin, gold, and commodities have a similarity in their weak safe-haven properties for the world stock market index, which is not the case for the developed, emerging, US, and Chinese stock markets. In fact, gold is the only weak safe-haven asset in developed stock markets, whereas both gold and commodities play that role in emerging stock markets. Interestingly, Bitcoin shares with commodities the weak safe-haven property in China, whereas commodities are the only weak safe-haven asset in the US [Shahzad 2019a]. While futures on virtual currencies have facilitated trading in this asset class, regulatory ambiguity on the treatment of the underlying assets also impedes its viability as a safe haven.

      With cryptocurrencies becoming more connected and more prominent within the system, the nature of information spillovers changes over time. The role of energy commodities, in contrast, is dependent on their price dynamics. Cryptocurrencies are integrated within broadly-defined commodity markets. From a theoretical point of view, different information channels and factors may play a role in forming a connection between the cryptocurrency market and the commodity markets. One correlated-information channel through which connections occur is via the price-discovery process. A second is the risk premium channel, through which a shock in one market may adversely affect the willingness of market participants to hold risk in any market. Industry-specific development may provide additional information linkages (e.g. A blockchain platform has been established to facilitate trade in crude oil between commodity firms). Potential linkages between energy and Bitcoin markets have been based on the rationale that energy, in the form of electricity, is the main cost of Bitcoin production (i.e., for mining). Commodities enjoy a strong network structure that is also intertwined with financial assets. Increasing connectedness [Ji 2019] between commodity and cryptocurrency markets weakens the attractiveness of portfolio diversification across these markets:

• energy and agricultural commodities are the driving forces of the whole commodity system.
• cryptocurrencies are not detached from the system and are more connected to the global commodity markets than are metals (including gold).
• cryptocurrencies are not strongly affected by energy commodities, which goes against the basic idea that electricity prices form an important part of cryptocurrency production costs.
• cryptocurrencies become more connected to and more important within the overall commodity network over time.
• energy commodities become less important over time as they are evidently connected to the price dynamics of crude oil as a representative commodity.
• the portfolio management role of cryptocurrencies as diversifiers is not necessarily as strong as is commonly believed, at least during times of general asset appreciation.

Controversies from the Commoditization of Cryptocurrencies

            [Kogan 2019] argues that the holding in CFTC vs McDonnell is overly broad. Many virtual currencies are designed for drastically different purposes, with distinct technological protocols. The term “virtual currency” encompasses many different, independently developed applications of distributed ledger technology. Need to distinguish between virtual currencies, cryptocurrencies, tokens, digital currencies – the court used a virtual currency definition as simply a digital representation of value that exists solely online, has no government legal tender status and can be traded as a medium of exchange, a unit of account or a store of value. The agency’s regulatory authority under CEA should not include services and tokens that cannot underlay DCM transactions, but the court decision would appear to grant that authority. For example, smart contracts running on a blockchain would appear to fall within the court’s definition. The CFTC has not directly addressed how liability for Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) violations involving blockchain or distributed ledger technology should be allocated among the various parties involved in the distributed ledger network, such as the network itself, persons running consensus nodes, developers building applications on the platform, and businesses and end-users using such applications [Mathews 2019].

CFTC regulation requires that any new contract not be readily susceptible to manipulation, but a careful review of the record indicates that bitcoin futures are susceptible to manipulation because the bitcoin spot market can be manipulated. In reviewing the contracts leading up to their self-certification, [Reiners 2019] argues that the CFTC ignored underlying dynamics in the bitcoin spot market and chose to exclusively focus on the ability of the contracts themselves to be manipulated; doubting that a futures contract can be resistant to manipulation when the asset underlying the contract is readily manipulated. The price of bitcoin varies depending on the exchange it trades on, and some exchanges have very low volume, so CME carefully constructed a reference rate for their futures contracts that could not be manipulated. The Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), in contrast, took a different approach when reviewing a proposal for a bitcoin exchange-traded product and concluded that manipulation in the bitcoin spot market precluded any kind of exchange-traded product tied to bitcoin. The CFTC has very little jurisdiction over the cash market— the trading of Bitcoin or other crypto-assets that are not securities for cash (or other crypto-assets that are not securities). That’s where most of the trading of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies takes place today. The agency can pursue cases of fraud and manipulation in the cash market. It can also bring actions pertaining to retail leveraged trades where there is a failure to deliver the commodity—that has been the basis for some enforcement actions. as a general matter, it cannot set oversight standards for the cash market in crypto-assets as it does with derivatives on those crypto-assets. The cash market for crypto-assets—which is where most of the trading takes place today—does not have well-developed standards. This is a problem for oversight generally and for the quality of crypto derivatives: if the underlying cash market is susceptible to (or characterized by) fraud and manipulation, then what confidence can one have in the derivatives?  [Massad 2019]. Blockchain technologies and cryptocurrencies in particular, are variously treated as commodities, securities, property by different governmental agencies [Goforth 2019]. The list of governmental agencies impacted by cryptocurrency concerns goes beyond the CFTC to include the SEC, FBI, Treasury, IRS etc. Resolving the regulatory ambiguity and jurisdictional boundaries seems likely to take some time.

References

[Al-Yahyaee 2019] K. Al-Yahyaee, et al. “Volatility forecasting, downside risk, and diversification benefits of Bitcoin and oil and international commodity markets: A comparative analysis with yellow metal.” The North American Journal of Economics and Finance 49 (2019): 104-120.

[Ali 2014] R. Ali, et. al., “The economics of digital currencies.” Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin (2014): Q3.

[Bouoiyour 2019] J. Bouoiyour, & R. Selmi. “How do futures contracts affect Bitcoin prices?.” (2019).

[CEA 1936] Public Law 74-675, 74th Congress, H. R. 6772: Commodity Exchange Act

[Das 2019] D. Das, et. al., “Does Bitcoin hedge crude oil implied volatility and structural shocks? A comparison with gold, commodity and the US Dollar.” Finance Research Letters(2019): 101335.

[Geman 2019] H. Geman, & H. Price. “Bitcoin Futures and Option Markets: Searching for Completeness.” Available at SSRN 3457167 (2019).

[Goforth 2019] C. Goforth, “US Law: Crypto Is Money, Property, A Commodity, And A Security, All At The Same Time.” Journal of Financial Transformation 49 (2019): 102-109.

[Gronwald 2019] M. Gronwald, “Is Bitcoin a Commodity? On price jumps, demand shocks, and certainty of supply.” Journal of International Money and Finance 97 (2019): 86-92.

[Ji 2019] Q. Ji, et al. “Information interdependence among energy, cryptocurrency and major commodity markets.” Energy Economics 81 (2019): 1042-1055.

[Kogan 2019] Kogan, Allen. “Not All Virtual Currencies Are Created Equal: Regulatory Guidance in the Aftermath of CFTC v. McDonnell.” Am. U. Bus. L. Rev. 8 (2019): 199.

[Lucking 2019] D. Lucking, & V. Aravind. “Cryptocurrency as a Commodity: The CFTC’s Regulatory Framework.” Global Legal Insights (2019).

[Massad 2019] T. Massad,  “It’s Time to Strengthen the Regulation of Crypto-Assets.” Economic Studies at Brookings (2019).

[Mathews 2019] N. Mathews, &  J. Robison. “Smart contracts that violate the Commodity Exchange Act: which parties are liable?.” Journal of Investment Compliance (2019).

[Platanakis 2019] E. Platanakis, & A. Urquhart. “Should investors include bitcoin in their portfolios? A portfolio theory approach.” The British Accounting Review (2019): 100837.

[Reiners 2019] Reiners, Lee. “Bitcoin Futures: From Self-Certification to Systemic Risk.” NC Banking Inst. 23 (2019): 61.

[Shahzad 2019] Shahzad, Syed Jawad Hussain, et al. “Is Bitcoin a better safe-haven investment than gold and commodities?.” International Review of Financial Analysis 63 (2019): 322-330.

[Shahzad 2019a] Shahzad, Syed Jawad Hussain, et al. “Safe haven, hedge and diversification for G7 stock markets: Gold versus bitcoin.” Economic Modelling (2019).

[Yermack 2013] D. Yermack, “Is Bitcoin a real currency? An economic appraisal [nber Working Paper no. 19747].” Available online at: National Bureau of Economic Research