Regulators from the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) reportedly demanded extensive trading data from several cryptocurrency exchanges, people familiar with the matter told the Wall Street Journal June 8. Regulators requested data in order to investigate whether manipulation might be compromising prices in digital currency markets.
The probe followed the launch of Bitcoin (BTC) futures by CME Group (NASDAQ:CME) in December last year. CME forms its Bitcoin (BTC) futures prices based on data from four crypto exchanges; Bitstamp, Coinbase, itBit and Kraken, where manipulative trading could reportedly have distorted the value of BTC futures. Investigators are going after trading schemes that can be used to manipulate the price of BTC futures that the government directly regulates.