Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Gary Gensler recently testified before the U.S Senate and outlined his position regarding the regulation of key financial areas. Unsurprisingly, one of them was what Gensler coined \u201ccrypto assets.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gensler was appointed Chairman of the SEC in 2021 and hasn\u2019t been shy about taking aim at the unlawful, unregulated nature of the digital currency markets and their potential danger to wider financial stability. Not long ago, he likened the current industry to the \u201cWild West,\u201d a sentiment he reiterated in the Senate hearing as he repeated his determination to bring the space into alignment with financial laws and regulations.<\/p>\n
While this type of statement typically causes \u201ccrypto bros\u201d to go into meltdown on social media, Gensler outlined some good reasons for wanting the industry to be regulated and offered some modest and perfectly reasonable proposals. Let\u2019s look closer at what he said.<\/p>\n
Gensler\u2019s Senate testimony – A quick breakdown<\/strong><\/p>\n At CoinGeek, we\u2019ve been covering the crime-spree within this industry for a long time, so Gensler\u2019s testimony is no shock to us. You can read all about it in our Crypto Crime Cartel series. It covers everything from laundering money for Colombian cartels to illegal insider trading by major exchanges and more.<\/p>\n We\u2019ve also been preaching the need to get ready for regulatory crackdowns and compliance for years. It\u2019s obvious to anyone who thinks clearly that powerful government agencies were never going to wave the white flag and allow old schemes and scams to present themselves dressed in new high-tech disguises. Also, despite what the code is law<\/em> crew thinks, technology must change to abide by the law and not the other way around. This moment was always coming, and now it is upon us.<\/p>\n There\u2019s no escaping the law…for real<\/strong><\/p>\n If you\u2019ve been paying attention, you\u2019ll know that Gensler\u2019s comments are indicative of the overall trend towards stricter regulation, a crackdown on rogue projects that believe securities laws don\u2019t apply to them (ETH 2.0 look out), and the inevitable reckoning that was always going to come as the industry matures and regulators get to grips with the key players, technologies, and trends.<\/p>\n Developers who are concerned with the direction this is going shouldn\u2019t be. Instead, they should build on legally compliant, scalable platforms like Bitcoin enterprise blockchain. Gensler himself said, \u201cNakamoto\u2019s innovation is real\u201d back in August, giving it his tacit approval, and since Satoshi Nakamoto issued all 21 million bitcoins at zero value and distributes them to miners for doing work, it\u2019s the only protocol in the space that you can be sure does not fit the definition of a security.<\/p>\n As regulatory crackdowns continue, these subtle details that prove the true genius of Satoshi Nakamoto and how carefully he thought out the design of Bitcoin will become increasingly apparent.<\/p>\n The current state of play in the digital currency industry<\/strong><\/p>\n While powerful social media personalities and supposed thought leaders in the industry continue to promote the idea that there\u2019s nothing any government can do to stop BTC (while simultaneously flying into fits of panic-stricken outrage when regulations are proposed), the truth is that the effort to tame the industry is well underway. Consider the following:<\/p>\n And this is just the tip of the iceberg. You can bet your bottom dollar that if the SEC Chairman is testifying to the U.S. Senate that the agency is going to get tough on the digital currency industry, and is going to cooperate with other agencies like the CFTC, then there\u2019s a lot more to come.<\/p>\n\n
\n