Coinbase vice president, Dorothy DeWitt will now supervise the market division of the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), according to an announcement made by the CFTC’s chairman, Heath P. Tarbert.
As noted in a press release Tuesday, Dorothy will serve as Director of the Division of Market Oversight (DMO), and also manage CFTC’s supervision of derivatives platforms and swap data repositories, including the evaluation of new platform-traded products.
In her new role, she will evaluate and approve new bitcoin derivatives products within the United States, as the previously examined bitcoin futures proposals by DMO, such as CME, Cboe, and Bakkt.
While commenting on the new appointment, the chairman, Tarbert said:
“Her strong investment, risk, legal, and compliance background and familiarity with distributed ledger technology, including crypto assets, will be invaluable as the agency looks to develop a holistic approach to regulating 21st-century commodities.”
Meanwhile, Dewitt in her role, succeeds former DMO director Amir Zaidi. He oversaw CFTC’s first bitcoin futures contracts since the ventured into crypto sectors in 2017.
“I also want to thank Dorothy’s predecessor, Amir Zaidi, for his more than nine years of service at the CFTC,” Tarbert said.
Meanwhile, apart from working from with Coinbase, where she serves as Vice President, DeWitt previously served in senior legal and compliance roles for Citadel Securities — a swaps dealer and broker-dealer provisionally-registered with the CFTC.
DeWitt bags a B.A (Plan ll) and she is a Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist (CAMS) who’s admitted to practice law in New York, as per the press release.
In a separate development, a commissioner at the CFTC, Rostin Behnam revealed in a regulation panel that the role of the CFTC is to foster open, competitive and transparent market, which perhaps calls for more enforcement, surveillance and market oversight.
“We are obviously a risk management agency as compared to the SEC, which is about capital formation. But you need a financial product that is based on future delivery,” Behnam added.
