US judge calls cryptocurrencies OHM and Klima "commodities" in Jafia LLC fraud case
The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) issued an announcement today that US District Court Judge Mary Rowland for the Northern District of Illinois issued an order for summary judgment in the Jafia LLC fraud case, and the judge ordered Oregon's Sam Ikkurty and his company Jafia LLC to pay more than $120 million in compensation to victims of what the agency called a "Ponzi scheme".
Notably, Judge Rowland also said that "not only does the order find that Bitcoin and Ethereum commodities fall under the jurisdiction of the CFTC, but that the two virtual currencies, OHM and Klima, qualify as commodities," noting that these virtual currencies fall into the same category as Bitcoin and involve regulated futures trading. OHM and Klima are both smaller cryptocurrencies compared to Bitcoin and Ethereum, however, the determination of which assets are securities (subject to the jurisdiction of the Securities Exchange Commission) or commodities (subject to the jurisdiction of the CFTC) has been disputed.