Today in crypto, CFTC Chair Michael Selig said the vacancies of four other commissioners at the agency won’t slow the regulator’s rulemaking, Jean-Didier Berger said at Paris Blockchain Week that France is preparing new steps to protect crypto holders as wrench attacks and kidnappings keep mounting in the country and World Liberty drew wide backlash over its plan to lock up early investor tokens for years.
With no bipartisan leadership, CFTC won't ‘slow down‘ on rulemaking
The chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), Michael Selig, said he would not wait for the appointment of additional commissioners to lead the regulatory agency before moving ahead on rulemaking potentially related to digital assets and prediction markets.
In a Thursday hearing of the House Agriculture Committee, Selig responded to questions from ranking member Angie Craig, who called out the lack of leadership at the CFTC, which normally has a bipartisan panel of five commissioners. The Minnesota representative asked the chair to commit to not finalizing regulations while he is the only commissioner.
“In the interim, we cannot, for the sake of the American people, slow down in our rulemaking,” said Selig. “It’s very important that we get investor protections, consumer protections and safeguards for our markets. And so, I cannot, unfortunately, commit to not do my job that I was appointed to do by the president.”
Selig, who has served as the CFTC’s sole commissioner and chair since December, has come under scrutiny from many lawmakers for unilaterally leading the agency on rules favoring crypto and prediction markets with no bipartisan group of commissioners. As of Thursday, President Donald Trump had not publicly announced any nominations to staff the agency nor signaled he intended to do so.
French minister says new measures coming after crypto kidnappings
Jean-Didier Berger, minister delegate to the interior minister of France, said authorities are taking measures to protect cryptocurrency investors from the growing threat of crypto kidnappings and wrench attacks in the country.
Speaking at Paris Blockchain Week, Berger said his office has taken “preventative measures” against crypto wrench attacks, including launching a prevention platform that has drawn thousands of sign-ups. He added that he was working with Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez on what he described as a more serious plan in the coming weeks.
His comments come days after another reported crypto-linked abduction in France this week, where a mother and her 11-year-old child were reportedly kidnapped in Burgundy on Monday by four suspects who demanded a 400,000 euro ($471,000) ransom from the father, a crypto entrepreneur. Authorities caught the suspects and freed the victims on Tuesday morning, reported news outlet France24, citing the Paris prosecutor’s office.
France has become one of the most prominent centers for so-called wrench attacks, in which victims are threatened or assaulted to force the transfer of digital assets, and the government is now under growing pressure to respond.
World Liberty under fire for token unlock plan
The Trump family’s World Liberty Financial faced widespread backlash over its proposal released on Wednesday that would lock up the tokens purchased by early investors for up to four years, or in some cases, indefinitely.
The plan outlined that early investors would have their World Liberty Financial (WLFI) tokens locked for a further two years before their tokens would be released in batches over the following two years, while tokenholders who did not accept the new unlock schedule would “continue to have their tokens locked indefinitely.”
The proposal saw wide opposition, most notably from World Liberty adviser and its biggest investor, Justin Sun, who called the plan “one of the most absurd governance scams I have ever seen.” Moonrock Capital founder Simon Dedic claimed that WLFI investors “who thought they were sitting on solid profits just got rugged.”
World Liberty Financial did not respond to questions about the backlash. Spokesman David Wachsman told Cointelegraph in an emailed statement that the proposal “was designed to further align all the participants in the WLFI ecosystem for the long run.”
