Brian Quintenz, the representative of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), raised the issue of accountability in the era of a distributed financial system and smart contracts during a speech at the 38th Annual GITEX Technology Week Conference in Dubai.
Quintens said that applying traditional regulatory methods to the “disintermediated world of Blockchain” causes certain difficulties. CFTC has traditionally played a key role in regulating financial relations, but so far its activities have been aimed at interacting with intermediaries and maintaining market integrity.
Quintenz proposes to pay increased attention to smart contracts that operate in the Blockchain and are programmed to comply with certain rules that are binding on all participants.
However, he doesn’t support the widespread view in the crypto environment that “code is law” and argues that smart contracts fall under CFTC jurisdiction and should be governed in exactly the same way as any other agreement.
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