The billionaire Winklevoss twins’ Gemini Trust Co. was sued by the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which claimed the cryptocurrency business misled the regulator about a Bitcoin futures contract.
In a lawsuit filed in federal court in Manhattan on Thursday, the CFTC alleged that Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss’s Gemini “made false and misleading statements” in communications with commission staff from July to December 2017 about the operations of the Gemini Exchange and the Gemini Bitcoin Auction.
The alleged false statements were about how the exchange was working to prevent manipulation, the CFTC said. It is seeking trading and registration bans plus fines and disgorgement of any illegal proceeds.
The proposed Bitcoin futures contract “was particularly significant because it was to be among the first digital asset futures contracts listed on a designated contract market, at a time of fervent interest by market participants in obtaining exposure to bitcoin through the derivatives markets,” the regulator said.
Gemini said it would fight the suit.
“Gemini has been a pioneer and proponent of thoughtful regulation since day one,” it said in a statement. “We have an eight year track-record of asking for permission, not forgiveness, and always doing the right thing. We look forward to definitively proving this in court.”
The case is Commodity Futures Trading Commission v. Gemini Trust Co., 22-cv-04563, US District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.