Without government regulation on all things financial, those nations', states', and otherwise-governed areas' financial markets are almost certainly not as active as their counterparts who do have effective regulatory bodies. The United States of America is home to the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), one of a handful of American government agencies responsible for keeping players across the financial sphere in check. Back in March 2014, a full three-and-a-half years before bitcoin became wildly popular during its run from January 2017 through December 2017 when the price rose from roughly $1,000 per BTC nearly 20 times greater - all the way up to $19,700 on select crypto exchanges. Recently, just eight days ago, the CFTC made public its execution of the beginning of its plan to check into the exchange of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Longtime GFI Group, Inc., chief executive officer - he held several other roles within the company's ranks before becoming the lead executive of the financial markets technology developer and provider - J. Christopher Giancarlo, one of a handful of commissioners of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, wants to look at troves of data related to the trade of cryptocurrencies of all flavors and sizes, particularly Bitcoin. Why would the United States regulatory organization be interested in little ol' Bitcoin? To clear the air, Bitcoin itself didn't aid or abet any illegal, illicit, or unethical activity; I guess it is difficult for a cryptocurrency to make such moves whenever it has absolutely zero executives! Except for that one Satoshi Nakamoto guy, whoever that pseudonymous guy is anyway. Unnamed individuals - not only did the following publication not know who they were, but law enforcement officials had no clue either - were found by the University of Texas at Austin to have probably inflated the trading price of bitcoin during the cryptocurrency's historic rise in 2017. The CFTC has asked a number of crypto markets and digital currency exchanges to provide the agency with very extensive trading information to unarguably certify if UT's assertion was, in fact, true.