A new bill wants to give the Federal Trade Commission $25M to go after crypto’s bad actors

Florida Democratic Congressman Darren Soto introduced a bill on Tuesday that would give the Federal Trade Commission $25 million in funding to go after nefarious actors in the digital asset market, The Block has learned.

In an earlier report, Politico wrote that the bill would also provide the agency, which aims to protect the interests of American consumers and fight anti-competitive business practices, with authority that "would supersede the Commodity Futures Trading Commission."

However, a Soto spokesperson told The Block that the Politico report was mistaken. "The Politico article is inaccurate."

"Nothing in this Act shall supercede the authority of the Commodity Trading Commission nor prevent treatment of digital tokens as commodities subject to the Commodity Exchange Act," the bill reads.

The CFTC and the Securities and Exchange Commission have both flexed their muscles in policing the nascent market, which stands close to $200 billion in total market capitalization. Still, regulatory fragmentation is one of the headaches that has hung over the market. Firms, including exchanges and wallet companies, answer to and must comply with numerous state and federal agencies.

Elsewhere, lawmakers reintroduced the so-called Token Taxonomy Act, which would except certain cryptos from U.S. securities laws. The new bill makes some clarifications on the definition of digital tokens and there are stricter rules around protecting consumers, as per a report by CoinDesk.