Comment Text:
As an independent small investor, I am strongly urging the Commission to support direct access to trading on margin without required intermediation.
Specifically, the CFTC should approve the proposal to allow cryptocurrency platforms to eliminate barriers to investments and increase competitive choice in markets, which is especially important to small independent investors like myself.
More importantly, the proposal would also make crypto trading in the United States much more safe, allowing the real-time transparent flow of data and the monitoring of transactions for suspicious behavior which is critical and sorely needed. The CFTC has an opportunity to minimize market risk by enabling platforms, such as FTX, to provide direct access to trading on margin without required intermediation. This smart reform would take out an additional layer of complexity in transactions, reducing the interconnection risk between organizations and overall systemic financial risk in the United States.
Mitigating market risks would not only put America and its investors at the forefront of global digital asset markets, but it will help protect small investors like myself. The public would be better served by the CFTC if the barrier to entry to transact competitively on global markets is through secure internet connections, rather than capricious high fees from relationships based on commissions. In addition, cryptocurrency platforms, such as FTX, offer 24/7 monitoring of all transactions to identify suspicious behavior and provide transparent real-time data on all markets. This 24/7 monitoring security benefits all investors and allows for tracing and reconciling illegal transactions and again protects small investors like my self.
Crypto-trading platforms have brought important technological innovations to trading, and it is going to continue to innovate and grow. A sound Federal policy framework should help encourage these innovations and ensure protection for small and large investors. Also, around $15 billion in assets are traded daily on the FTX platform, and FTX now carries out approximately 10% of the total global volume for crypto. These reforms would also increase the global competitiveness of the United States in international markets.
Please stand up for American investors and take action to promote market access and reduce barriers for users to transact competitively on global markets.
