The CEO of Aptos Labs, Mo Shaikh, has been selected by the U.S. Commodities and Futures Trading Commission (SEC) to its digital assets subcommittee in an apparent effort to close the divide between the traditional financial markets and the digital assets sector.
Subcommittee on Digital Assets Markets of the CFTC
The Global Markets Advisory Committee’s (GMAC) Subcommittee on Digital Assets Markets is a key player in influencing the CFTC’s global commerce and business rulemaking. Established in 1998, the GMAC is comprised of top financial executives from major corporations such as Citadel, Goldman Sachs, and HSBC.
Prominent executives from BNY Mellon, Polygon Labs, Uniswap Labs, and BlackRock are among the 34 subcommittee members. These industry representatives provide invaluable guidance to the CFTC on navigating the complexity of digital asset regulation. According to DL News, Shaikh, a subcommittee member, they are reportedly applied in writing for his job.
Aptos Stands for Web3
With Shaikh’s selection, Aptos, a Layer 1 blockchain that debuted in October 2022, gains even more credibility. The network was created by former workers of Facebook’s parent firm, Meta Platforms. Before its discontinuation in February 2022, Facebook’s blockchain project Diem was the focus of Shaikh and co-founder Avery Ching’s work. Shaikh stated:
“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.”
Move, a programming language first created for Diem, is used by Aptos to power a blockchain network intended to execute transactions more quickly than Ethereum. Notable venture capital firms Andreessen Horowitz and Jump Crypto have contributed $400 million to Aptos Labs’ investment.
Additionally, Aptos Labs will see a token unlock next week. On June 12, 2024, following its previous token unlock, Aptos will issue 11.31 million more tokens, valued at roughly $103 million.
The blockchain network intends to release 105.63 million tokens into the market between May 2024 and October 2026, according to the tokenomics portal Token Unlocks. On July 12, 2024, 11.30 million APT tokens are expected to be unlocked and put into circulation.
