Report: LedgerX Claims Ex-CFTC Chairman Stalled Approvals Due to Personal Bias

Cryptocurrency derivatives firm LedgerX alleges that former United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission chairman Christopher Giancarlo obstructed the approval of its amended Derivatives Clearing Organization registration because of personal bias against the firm's CEO Paul Chou.

As Industry news outlet Coindesk reported on Sept. 28, LedgerX made the allegations in two letters obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request.

"[Giancarlo] told him that he was going to make sure our DCO order was revoked within two weeks, due to a blog post written by myself the previous year implying that preferential treatment was being given to larger companies so he could 'cement his legacy.

Per the outlet's report, LedgerX was asked by the CFTC to acquire insurance and conduct a SOC 1 Type 2 audit.

The company claims that one of the CFTC staffers tried to interfere with LedgerX's audit.

"Previous chairman wanted to revoke LX license bc Bakkt efforts not moving along. Having no legitimate reason to revoke our license, staff resorted to contacting our independent auditors to tamper with audit to give commission reason to revoke license. Staff admitted & apologized."

Per the report, the CFTC has now has 180 days to approve or deny an application under federal laws.

The letters also note that the CFTC's swap data repository requirements force LedgerX to report to the Intercontinental Exchange's ICE Trade Vault, and the latter company has already launched its own competing service - Bakkt.

"They didn't tell me why but I think it's pretty obvious why they did it. One of the issues they were going to talk about was custody and LedgerX is essentially the only member that does custody right now so we were about to send Juthica."

As Cointelegraph reported at the end of July, the CFTC has reportedly confirmed that LedgerX's physically-settled bitcoin futures product has not yet been approved by the Commission.