15 Feb 2021 Anthony Lehrman
SEC Commissioner Insists On Regulatory Clarity On Crypto
The crypto community received a welcoming wave of institutional support since the start of February, with the most notable entities being Tesla and BNY Mellon. The adoption seems to be pivotal for the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), as Commissioner Hester Peirce called for “urgent regulatory clarity on cryptocurrencies”.
SEC’s “Crypto Mom”, as the crypto community refers to Peirce for her crypto-friendly stance on cryptocurrencies, noted that the latest BNY Mellon support for digital assets “make it more pressing for US regulators to take action and bring more regulatory clarity.” However, according to Pierce, her colleagues in the SEC are not “an easy bunch”.
Earlier this week, as Cryptobrowser reported, BNY Mellon announced the addition of cryptocurrencies to its asset management services.
However, “the lack of regulatory clarity meant that this would be unlikely to spur much uptake of digital assets,” CTO and co-founder of blockchain P2P trading platform Zennota Andrew Kessler commented.
The news about BNY Mellon entering the crypto custodial services sector comes amid the SEC fighting with numerous crypto projects for “distributing securities in unregistered sales.”
Kessler added that interest in top cryptos like Bitcoin and Ethereum should see a spike. “We will see much FOMO among other US banks who will rush fast-track their digital asset roadmaps,” Kessler concluded.
Meanwhile, Guy Hirsch, US Managing Director at eToro, commented that the lack of regulatory clarity and the bad infrastructure are among the top barriers for institutional investors to join the world of cryptos.
“The OCC’s statement last year that nationally chartered banks can custody crypto provided that clarity,” he said, “and it was only a matter of time before a large bank made this kind of announcement,” Hirsch added.
However, Peirce’s call for regulatory clarity might not happen in the near future. The SEC commissioner called numerous times for the creation of a “regulatory safe haven” for DeFi projects to get their projects in compliance with the SEC before the Commission would take any legal actions against the DeFi sector.
Indeed, the US government is slow when it comes to deciding about cryptocurrencies. However, assigning new additions to the administration personnel could speed up the process.
“It’s not only that there have been calls for clarity for some time and that a new administration brings the chance to take a fresh look, but it also is a moment where it seems others in the marketplace are also taking a fresh look,” Peirce noted.
In the meantime, industry leaders are all agreeing on the thesis that regulatory clarity would boost the adoption of cryptocurrencies. Seamus Donoghue, VP Sales & Business Development at METACO stated that “regulatory barriers seem to be rapidly declining in all jurisdictions—even in the US, which has historically lagged behind Europe until only recently.”
Furthermore, experts are considering BNY Mellon’s decision to add crypto as a milestone for the industry, but the bank’s efforts have to be supported by the crypto sector itself. For instance, projects have to “ramp up its compliance and risk monitoring programs, reduce market manipulation and continue to raise customer protection standards,” according to Asaf Meir, CEO at Solidus Labs.
Cryptocurrency Regulations Cryptocurrency SEC Crypto Market crypto crypto market monitoring SEC Regulation Regulations
