AI Labs · updated 2026-06-03 · methodology v2.1

Finding on 'Q006 Probe' for Claude Sonnet 4.6 with web search ON

RLB Citation ID: RLB-H-US-CFTC-DIGITAL-ASSET-COLLATERAL-TOKENIZED-ASSETS-STAFF-GUIDANCE-2025-Q006-Sonnet46

What the RLB Specialist Panel found

Finding on 'Q006 Probe' for Claude Sonnet 4.6 with web search ON

Question (paraphrased to protect IP): An FCM began accepting bitcoin, ether, and USDC as customer margin collateral in January 2026 under the CFTC's digital asset pilot. At the end of the initial three-month phase, does the weekly obligation to report total digital asset holdings in each customer account class cease or continue, and which other initial-phase conditions do sunset at that point?
AI's response: "3. Weekly Digital Asset Reporting (CEASES at end of third calendar month following notice filing)... Based on the March 2026 CFTC Staff FAQs, this reporting terminates at the end of the third calendar month following the firm's notice filing."
Regulator's text: However, weekly reporting of digital asset holdings continues: weekly reports of total crypto assets held in each of the futures, foreign futures, and cleared swaps customer accounts — this obligation is not among the conditions that sunset after 3 months.
Why the AI went wrong: The model fabricated a source — "March 2026 CFTC Staff FAQs" — to support an answer that is directly contradicted by the regulator's text, and presented the termination as a precisely-worded procedural rule. This is the more severe failure form: not merely an inference from the instrument's structure, but a confabulated authority cited to give the wrong answer the appearance of documentary grounding.
Cited source(s):

Impact for this audience

This is the most severe finding in this paper: the model fabricated a specific source document — 'March 2026 CFTC Staff FAQs' — to support an answer directly contradicted by the regulator's text, and presented the termination as a precisely-worded procedural rule. This implicates the calibration signal for named-source citations: the model committed to a document title and date without apparent retrieval basis rather than flagging uncertainty. It also implicates the training-data representation of the amendment cycle — the model's confident wrong answer suggests it is reconstructing from a plausible structural template, not retrieving the governing text.

References — raw findings (per AI model)

RLB-H-US-CFTC-DIGITAL-ASSET-COLLATERAL-TOKENIZED-ASSETS-STAFF-GUIDANCE-2025-Q006-Opus47 Claude Opus 4.7 (web search on)
RLB-H-US-CFTC-DIGITAL-ASSET-COLLATERAL-TOKENIZED-ASSETS-STAFF-GUIDANCE-2025-Q006-Sonnet46 Claude Sonnet 4.6 (web search on)

This finding also affects

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Cite this finding

Each finding has a stable Citation ID (RLB-F-… for aggregated case-study findings, RLB-H-… for raw per-model hallucinations) — like a DOI, the ID always resolves to the canonical finding even if URLs change.

RLB Citation ID: RLB-H-US-CFTC-DIGITAL-ASSET-COLLATERAL-TOKENIZED-ASSETS-STAFF-GUIDANCE-2025-Q006-Sonnet46

Plain text Download

RegLeg Specialist Panel (2026). "Finding on 'Q006 Probe' for Claude Sonnet 4.6 with web search ON — AI Labs." Citation ID: RLB-H-US-CFTC-DIGITAL-ASSET-COLLATERAL-TOKENIZED-ASSETS-STAFF-GUIDANCE-2025-Q006-Sonnet46. RegLegBrief AI Hallucination Research, published 2026-06-03. https://reglegbrief.com/regulators/j3/us/cftc/digital-asset-collateral-tokenized-assets-staff-guidance-2025/whitepaper/finding/US-CFTC-US-001-DIGITAL-ASSET-COLLATERAL-TOKENIZED-ASSETS-STAFF-GUIDANCE-2025-v1-006--sonnet-46-websearch/

APA 7th edition Download

RegLeg Specialist Panel. (2026). Finding on 'Q006 Probe' for Claude Sonnet 4.6 with web search ON [Hallucination finding RLB-H-US-CFTC-DIGITAL-ASSET-COLLATERAL-TOKENIZED-ASSETS-STAFF-GUIDANCE-2025-Q006-Sonnet46]. RegLegBrief AI Hallucination Research. https://reglegbrief.com/regulators/j3/us/cftc/digital-asset-collateral-tokenized-assets-staff-guidance-2025/whitepaper/finding/US-CFTC-US-001-DIGITAL-ASSET-COLLATERAL-TOKENIZED-ASSETS-STAFF-GUIDANCE-2025-v1-006--sonnet-46-websearch/

Bluebook / OSCOLA (US + UK legal) Download

RegLeg Specialist Panel, Finding on 'Q006 Probe' for Claude Sonnet 4.6 with web search ON [RLB-H-US-CFTC-DIGITAL-ASSET-COLLATERAL-TOKENIZED-ASSETS-STAFF-GUIDANCE-2025-Q006-Sonnet46], RegLegBrief AI Hallucination Research (June 03, 2026), https://reglegbrief.com/regulators/j3/us/cftc/digital-asset-collateral-tokenized-assets-staff-guidance-2025/whitepaper/finding/US-CFTC-US-001-DIGITAL-ASSET-COLLATERAL-TOKENIZED-ASSETS-STAFF-GUIDANCE-2025-v1-006--sonnet-46-websearch/.

BibTeX Download

@misc{reglegbrief_RLB_H_US_CFTC_DIGITAL_ASSET_COLLATERAL_TOKENIZED_ASSETS_STAFF_GUIDANCE_2025_Q006_Sonnet46,
  author    = {RegLeg Specialist Panel},
  title     = {Finding on 'Q006 Probe' for Claude Sonnet 4.6 with web search ON},
  year      = {2026},
  publisher = {RegLegBrief AI Hallucination Research},
  note      = {Hallucination finding Citation ID: RLB-H-US-CFTC-DIGITAL-ASSET-COLLATERAL-TOKENIZED-ASSETS-STAFF-GUIDANCE-2025-Q006-Sonnet46},
  url       = {https://reglegbrief.com/regulators/j3/us/cftc/digital-asset-collateral-tokenized-assets-staff-guidance-2025/whitepaper/finding/US-CFTC-US-001-DIGITAL-ASSET-COLLATERAL-TOKENIZED-ASSETS-STAFF-GUIDANCE-2025-v1-006--sonnet-46-websearch/}
}

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