CFTC Appoints Aptos Labs CEO To Its Digital Assets Committee

In what seems to be an attempt to bridge the gap between the traditional financial markets and the digital assets industry, the U.S. Commodities and Futures Trading Commission (SEC) has appointed Aptos Labs CEO Mo Shaikh to its digital assets subcommittee.

CFTC’s Digital Assets Markets Subcommittee

The Digital Assets Markets Subcommittee, part of the Global Markets Advisory Committee (GMAC), plays a pivotal role in shaping the CFTC’s rulemaking on international trade and business. Established in 1998, the GMAC is composed of leading financial executives from major firms like Citadel, Goldman Sachs, and HSBC.

The 34-member subcommittee includes notable executives from BlackRock, Polygon Labs, Uniswap Labs, and BNY Mellon. These industry representatives provide crucial advice to the CFTC, thus helping to navigate the complexities of digital asset regulation. According to DL News, Shaikh, one of the subcommittee members, secured his position through a written application process.

Aptos Represents Web3

Shaikh’s appointment adds further legitimacy to Aptos, a Layer 1 blockchain launched in October 2022. The network was developed by former employees of Meta Platforms, Facebook’s parent company. Both Shaikh and co-founder Avery Ching previously worked on Facebook’s blockchain project, Diem, and later discontinued it in February 2022. Shaikh said:

“Not only do we represent L1s, but we also represent a lot of the projects in the Web3 space — and [are] happy to be a voice for them along the way.”

Aptos utilizes Move, the programming language initially developed for Diem, to power a blockchain network designed to process transactions faster than Ethereum. Aptos Labs has secured $400 million in funding from prominent venture capital firms, including Andreessen Horowitz and Jump Crypto.

Moreover, next week, Aptos Labs will undergo a token unlock. Following its previous token unlock, Aptos will release an additional 11.31 million tokens, valued at approximately $103 million, on June 12, 2024.

According to the tokenomics platform Token Unlocks, the blockchain platform plans to introduce a total of 105.63 million tokens into the market between May 2024 and October 2026. The next scheduled unlock will occur on July 12, 2024, with 11.30 million APT tokens entering circulation.