Speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, she said within CCIPS, NCET will continue to "investigate and, where appropriate, prosecute criminal offenses involving the abuse of cryptocurrency. That includes, in partnership with the Criminal Division’s Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section (MLARS), investigating and prosecuting cryptocurrency exchanges that facilitate money laundering. As has always been the case, NCET will leverage MLARS expertise in money laundering, Bank Secrecy Act, and financial institution cases, and digital asset seizure and forfeiture by continuing to collaborate with MLARS in these areas."

The merger means that the number of Criminal Division attorneys available to work on criminal cryptocurrency matters will more than double. 

Argentieri said the merger "elevates cryptocurrency work within the Criminal Division by giving it equal status to computer crime and intellectual property work. The Director of NCET will personally have the authority to approve charging decisions and other steps in investigations and litigation."

She added that as part of CCIPS, NCET will "multiply the entire Department’s ability to trace cryptocurrency, to charge cases involving the criminal use of cryptocurrency, and to seize legally forfeitable cryptocurrency as a way to get those funds back to victims – just as CCIPS has, historically, helped prosecutors throughout the Department confront electronic evidence, intellectual property, and computer crime issues. Every modern prosecutor needs to be able to trace and seize cryptocurrency. This merger recognizes that."

The newly established litigating section has congressional approval and comes in response to the core findings in Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco’s Comprehensive Cyber Review in July 2022.

Commenting on the announcement, Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division said: “NatSec Cyber will give us the horsepower and organizational structure we need to carry out key roles of the Department in this arena. This new section will allow NSD to increase the scale and speed of disruption campaigns and prosecutions of nation-state threat actors, state-sponsored cybercriminals, associated money launderers, and other cyber-enabled threats to national security.”

See also Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen remarks at Hoover Institution announcing the National Security Cyber Section.

Chairman Behnam said customer protections are "paramount" for retail market participants entering a "new and technically complex digital asset market". He urged Congress to ensure the CFTC is "fully empowered to require registered entities to make necessary disclosures regarding a variety of matters, such as investment risk, cybersecurity risks, mining, settlement practices and other related activities; ensure customers are receiving the best available prices; and segregate and safeguard assets in a way that protects customers in the event of a failure by the platform."

Regarding market integrity, the Chairman said the digital asset market has been "plagued by fraud and manipulation". While the CFTC has been "proactive in policing these markets," its legal authority over the spot market for digital commodity tokens is "necessarily limited to acting only after the fraud has occurred". 

A key feature of any regulatory scheme should be "authority for the CFTC to proactively establish rules to minimize fraud in the first place. This should include authority to "set stringent standards for preventing conflicts of interest, establish rules for maintaining fair, open, and transparent markets, and actively monitoring trading by market participants."