TL;DR Breakdown:
- SEC Chairman says the crypto market will not end well if it stays outside regulators’ radar.
- Gary Gensler added there would not be an existential threat to the market provided the players comply.
The Chairman of the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Gary Gensler wants more robust oversight of the crypto market, which has grown significantly in capitalization and participants. Yesterday, at the Code Conference in Beverly Hills, California, the regulator said that many people would be hurt if the market stayed outside the regulatory space.
The crypto market needs regulation
Gensler told the former federal prosecutor Preet Bharara at the conference that he is “technology-neutral” on financial markets, but not when it involves the protection of investors on new products like cryptocurrencies and SPACs (i.e., special purpose acquisition companies). According to him, the crypto market ought to be within regulators’ radar; else, it is not going to end well.
“To think that a field that’s grown 10-fold in the last 18 months—not just in terms of asset value, but in the underlying lending and much more—that it’s going to stay outside of these public policy frameworks and succeed… We’ll end up with a problem, and a lot of people will be hurt,” the SEC chairman said.
Gensler has previously noted that he wants more robust oversight for the crypto market, as he described them to be the “Wild West.” Many crypto investors, especially in the US, are concerned that the regulators might impose an “existential threat” or kill the crypto market as it gains more traction. However, the SEC Chairman thinks otherwise, provided the crypto firms “want to comply with anti-money laundering laws, tax compliance, and the like.”
Regulatory pressure on crypto continues globally
Several crypto companies and exchanges have been under pressure from different regulators over the past month. In response, many platforms had to adjust their offering and limit access to certain countries. Recently, Binance restricted most of its services to investors and traders in Singapore, including fiat deposits and token swaps.
