Dorothy D. DeWitt, the General Counsel for Business Lines and Markets at Coinbase, is set to join the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) as the agency’s leader for its Division of Market Oversight.
According to the announcement, DeWitt’s role will be to supervise derivatives platforms and to assess new platform-trade such as Bitcoin futures. She will succeed Amir Zaidai, the former Director of CFTC’s Division of Market Oversight, who left the position in early August.
Speaking about the appointment, CFTC Chairman Heath Tarbert had this to say:
“I am excited Dorothy will soon be joining our team….She brings to the CFTC more than 20 years of private sector experience in the financial services and legal fields. Her strong investment, risk, legal, and compliance background and familiarity with distributed ledger technology, including crypto assets, will be invaluable as the agency looks to develop a holistic approach to regulating 21st-century commodities.”
The Chairman also extended a vote of thanks to Dorothy’s predecessor for serving the agency with dedication for more than nine years.
DeWitt’s Background
Ms. DeWitt is the current Vice President and General Counsel for Business Lines and Markets at Coinbase, which is a crypto-allied company. Previously, she served in senior legal and compliance positions at Citadel Securities. She also served as a broker-dealer and swaps dealer provisionally registered with the CFTC, among others.
A graduate of Harvard Law School, DeWitt is a Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist (CAMS) and a New York lawyer.
The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has the mission to foster open, transparent, competitive, and financially sound markets. The commission aims to prevent systemic risk by protecting market users and their funds, consumers and the public from scams, manipulation, as well as abusive practices that relate to derivatives and other products governed by the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA).