Cryptocurrency Not Included on SEC's Upcoming Agenda

It seems that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) isn't too concerned with cryptocurrency at the moment.

The government agency published its regulatory agenda for the coming spring and summer on Friday, 11 June, and cryptocurrency isn’t specifically mentioned on it, despite SEC Chair Gary Gensler’s recent comments that retail investors would benefit from regulation of exchanges and that the agency should be ready to enforce crypto cases.

SEC is now focusing on crafting and finalizing rules for special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs); short sale disclosures; money market reforms; gamification of trading platforms such as Robinhood; and a number of other issues.

The new SEC agenda is broken down into three stages:

1) prerule,

2) proposed rule, and

3) final rule.

Looking the agenda more closely, there are areas for SEC to discuss crypto. “I could imagine the gamification thing touching on digital assets (Robinhood effect),” lawyer Gabriel Shapiro told Decrypt, in reference to proposed rulemaking for trading platforms.

Moreover, SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce’s proposed “safe harbor” for crypto projects could conceivably appear during a prerule process on exempt offerings. That’s because, under her proposal, projects with tokens that might normally be considered securities—that is, tradeable investment contracts—would be given a “time-limited exemption” from filing with the agency.

Gensler discussed in May during an appearance before the House Financial Services Committee,how regulation of cryptocurrency exchanges could protect investors. He proposed that it would need to be headed up by Congress as crypto is currently a vague topic: the SEC doesn’t consider Bitcoin and certain other cryptocurrencies to be securities. “Right now, there’s not a market regulator around these crypto exchanges and thus there’s really no protection around fraud or manipulation,” Gensler commented on the matter.

However SEC on Thursday warned that Bitcoin futures are a “highly speculative investment”, which could be interpreted that SEC keeping a close eye on the sector. Cornerstone Research reported last month that SEC has issued over $1.7 billion in penalties against cryptocurrency firms; most of the allegations were fraud-related, and over 60% dealt with alleged unregistered securities offerings.

Source: Cryptocurrency Not Included on SEC's Upcoming Agenda – Fintechs.fi

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