CFTC fined crypto exchange Digitex $15 million
Date: 2023-07-15 Author: Karina Ziganova Categories: BLOCKCHAIN, BUSINESS
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission accused the founder of Digitex of manipulating the price of DGTX and illegally operating in the futures market
Cryptocurrency trading platform Digitex and its founder Adam Todd fined $15 million
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) said in a press release. According to the agency, Todd manipulated the quotes of the digitex futures token (DGTX), illegally provided futures services through Digitex Futures, and also violated compliance requirements.
According to the CFTC, in the summer of 2020, Todd tried to pump the DGTX rate using a bot. In support of the manipulations, the CFTC cited the testimony of third-party cryptocurrency exchanges, to which Todd personally claimed that he planned to "pump" the token. The bot was deployed on a third-party trading platform. It has always sent more orders to buy DGTX than to sell it. The bot also conducted large over-the-counter transactions with DGTX, but never traded the token on the Digitex Futures platform itself using funds from the local reserve. The CFTC believes that Todd did not touch the reserve funds on the site, because he wanted to use them for enrichment, taking into account the pump quotes.
In addition to the fine, the CFTC also banned Todd and his companies from doing business that falls under the jurisdiction of the regulator. The DGTX token did not react to the news in any way and continues to trade in daily gains, according to CoinMarketCap.
Earlier, the Commission achieved a legal precedent by covering up the decentralized organization Ooki DAO. According to the court order, Ooki DAO violated U.S. laws by functioning as a futures trading platform. The court also ordered the project to pay a fine of $643,542. In addition to the fine, the court ordered the organization's web providers (domain registrar and hosting) to close the website and remove its content from the Internet.
