Litecoin (LTC) has risen nearly 20% over the past three days after the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) labeled the asset a commodity in a legal complaint.
On Tuesday, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) and the CFTC filed charges against the crypto exchange KuCoin and two of its founders, Chun Gan and Ke Tang.
The DOJ alleges that the exchange operated an unlicensed money transmission business, failed to maintain an adequate anti-money laundering (AML) program, and received more than $5 billion in suspicious and criminal proceeds.
The CFTC also accused KuCoin of illegally trading off-exchange commodity futures transactions, among other alleged violations.
In its complaint, the regulator states that certain digital assets are commodities.
“KuCoin, which bills itself as the ‘People’s Exchange,’ is a centralized digital asset exchange headquartered in the Republic of Seychelles, the Cayman Islands and Singapore, with 27 million customers in 200 countries, including the United States, and a cumulative trading volume of $3 .6 trillion by 2022.
During the Relevant Period, KuCoin solicited and accepted orders, accepted properties to provide margin, and operated a facility for trading futures, swaps and leveraged, margined or financed retail transactions involving digital assets that are commodities, including Bitcoin (BTC ), Ether (ETH) and Litecoin (LTC).”
The CFTC also referred to those same three crypto assets as commodities in a complaint against Binance last year.
This claim directly contradicts comments made by US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Gary Gensler, who claimed in 2023 that every coin except Bitcoin is a security. Earlier this year, Gensler declined to answer whether ETH counted as a security or a commodity.
LTC is trading at $105.75 at the time of writing, up about 20% from $88.40 on Tuesday.
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Generated image: Midjourney