SEC boss says crypto intermediaries have to comply with securities laws
Gary Gensler alleged that the crypto sector is collaborating with scammers & causing several scams against innocent people.
Gary Gensler is chairman of the United States Securities Exchange Commission (SEC). Since early 2021, the SEC agency has been taking several enforcement actions against good & bad actors in the crypto sector. In the last 6 months, the SEC agency sued half a dozen crypto firms, which were highly regulated & provided services in compliance with the corresponding regulatory body.
Recently Gary Gensler appeared at the Piper Sandler Global Exchange and FinTech Conference in New York City. There he said that the crypto sector reminds him of the 1920s situation when there were no securities laws.
“(the 1920s brought) Hucksters. Fraudsters. Scam artists. Ponzi schemes. The public left in line at the bankruptcy court,” Gensler said.
Gensler said that the majority of cryptocurrencies are securities & all of the intermediaries are required to comply with regulatory bodies under federal securities laws.
In short, the SEC body wants that all the crypto project team (back-end developer team, backend funding institutions behind crypto assets, foundations, etc) should register with the SEC body.
According to the SEC chairman, failures of the crypto companies in the past showed that there are huge numbers of things that need to be brought under the regulatory authority of the SEC body & as well as self-regulatory organization.
Here it is worth noting that, earlier this the SEC body several times urged the crypto companies to register with the agency. While many times many crypto company executives alleged that the SEC has no regulatory path for the registered crypto companies, so they can’t blindly register with the SEC.
SEC vs Crypto firms
In the last week, the SEC body sued Binance, Binance subsidiary BinanceUS, and Coinbase exchange over violation of federal securities laws.
Following the suit, BinanceUS delisted 101 crypto assets trade pairs from the exchange, while Coinbase exchange said that it will not suspend or terminate any of its services.
Interestingly, both of these crypto companies confirmed that they will solve this case in court.
Before this, Gensler said that crypto companies were already warned by the agency but they failed to comply via changement in their services. Indeed, Gensler indirectly targeted Coinbase exchange over crypto staking services.
Read also: Legal expert slams SEC over considering ADA as a security asset
