The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has made a lot of enemies in the crypto and investment worlds over the past several years, with several digital asset companies claiming that the company has a ruleset all its own and that it has too much power and pleasure in prosecuting firms it believes go against its narrative. The SEC Is Going After All These Firms Among the people who feel this way about the SEC is the head of policy at venture capitalist Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) Brian Quentenz, who’s also a former Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) agent. In a recent meeting, he commented: The SEC is completely out of control. They’re going rogue. The United States [needs] to [decide] about whether it will embrace and support innovators in this country.
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Nick Marinoff considers the following as important: Bitcoin News, crypto, News, Perianne Boring, sec
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The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has made a lot of enemies in the crypto and investment worlds over the past several years, with several digital asset companies claiming that the company has a ruleset all its own and that it has too much power and pleasure in prosecuting firms it believes go against its narrative.
The SEC Is Going After All These Firms
Among the people who feel this way about the SEC is the head of policy at venture capitalist Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) Brian Quentenz, who’s also a former Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) agent. In a recent meeting, he commented:
The SEC is completely out of control. They’re going rogue. The United States [needs] to [decide] about whether it will embrace and support innovators in this country. There are jurisdictions that are mindful about this. That is not what we are seeing in the United States, and the clock is ticking.
He says that with the SEC currently running the show the way it is, the industry has a chance of never growing or expanding in America. This will cause the United States to fall significantly behind, and all other nations that have either adopted crypto or that are at least looking into doing so stand to benefit and gain competitive advantages.
Among the biggest crypto cases being handled by the SEC at the time of writing include one against popular digital currency trading platform Kraken, based in Northern California. The company was recently forced into a settlement with the agency and had to forfeit a $30 million penalty fee. It was also required to cease all its staking activities and services.
Kristin Smith – chief executive of crypto lobby group the Blockchain Association – also feels that the SEC is simply too powerful and taking too much glee in going after crypto companies while not considering if they are, in fact, operating within regular and legal bounds. She said:
It certainly feels like a crypto carpet-bombing moment. As the lawyers are analyzing this space, they’re thinking really hard about whether or not the U.S. is the appropriate place to base some of these crypto activities.
The U.S. Will Fall Behind
Perianne Boring, the founder and chief executive officer of the Chamber of Digital Commerce, has been very critical of the SEC’s approach to the crypto space. She said:
We consider this regulation by enforcement because it’s creating new legal precedent through an enforcement action, but it would be much better for the entire industry if we just had clear rules to the road.
Following the collapse of FTX, it appears many financial agencies in the U.S. – not just the SEC – as well as the federal government are adamant about initiating crypto regulation in the U.S. once and for all to prevent another major crumbling.