CFTC Commissioner Dan Berkovitz becomes General Counsel of the SEC

Dan Berkovitz, one of three commissioners currently serving on the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission, will join the Securities and Exchange Commission as General Counsel after retiring in October.

28. Announcement, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said Berkovitz will take on the role of General Counsel for Commodity Futures Trading (CFTC) effective November 1, two weeks after he retired as commissioner, where he has served since 2018 will work with SEC Chairman Gary Gensler on a “Regulatory Agenda to Strengthen Investor Protection”.

Although his tenure at the CFTC was originally slated to end in 2023, Berkovitz announced in September that he would be retiring from former Presidents Heath Tarbert and Brian Quintenz on October 15. The White House has not yet identified a possible successor for Berkovitz.

This month, Berkovitz said the CFTC’s enforcement actions in the crypto space had been “aggressive,” citing a $ 100 million civil fine on the derivatives exchange BitMEX.

The CFTC commissioner has also hinted that decentralized financial platforms may be illegal under the Commodity Exchange Act, saying there is a “centralized spectrum” around projects in the potential DeFi area.

Related: CFTC renewed: Biden’s new agency decides which crypto regulation it wants to maintain

Berkovitz will serve the American people under the leadership of Gary Gensler, who has argued that many crypto projects that created securities fall within the regulatory framework of the SEC. In August, the SEC chairman said he hoped to introduce crypto-related policy changes in token offering, decentralized funding, stablecoins, custody, exchange traded funds exchange, and lending platform.