CFTC sues Gemini saying the exchange gave false information in person and lied in its futures contract evaluation, aiming to be among the first to offer BTC futures contracts so let’s read more today in our latest cryptocurrency news.

The US CFTC sues Gemini Trust in the US Southern District Court of New York and claimed in the civil suit that the exchange made false or misleading statements in 2017 during the in-person meetings and documents that violate the Commodity Exchange Act and other regulations. The agency made an evaluation of the potential self-certification of a BTC futures contract to be based on the spot BTC price determined by the auction held on the digital asset trading platform.

The CFTC considered whether the proposed BTC futures contract will be susceptible to manipulation and it would have been among the first digital asset futures contracts listed. Gemini is a crypto trading platform founded by the billionaire twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss. It announced staff cuts as well and is preparing to lay off 10% of its workforce because of a crypto market downturn. The CFTC said in a statement that it is seeking disgorgement of the ill-gotten gains and the monetary penalties and injunctions that relate to registration and trading as well as against further violations of the Commodity Exchange Act. The CFTC acting director Gretchen Lowe said:

“This enforcement action sends a strong message that the Commission will act to safeguard the integrity of the market oversight process.”

Gemini is considered to be a pioneer and proponent of regulation since its inception. The platform has about an eight-year track record of asking for permission and they said they are looking forward to proving this in court. The BTC futures started trading on CBOE in 2017.

As recently reported, The lagging crypto markets landed a huge to the industry’s workforce. For example, Gemini laid off 10% of the staff members to help the company go through the crypto winter, as the billionaire twins and founders of the exchange announced. The brothers reaffirmed that they think the crypto revolution is underway but the current trajectory forced them to reevaluate the size of the workforce.