The crypto industry is full of scams and is reminiscent of the securities market of the 1920s before regulation was introduced. About it declared chairman SEC Gary Gensler.
He titled his speech at the Piper Sandler Global Exchange & Fintech conference “We’ve seen the story before.”
“Merchants, scammers, scammers, Ponzi schemes. The public lined up in the bankruptcy court, ”the head of the department described the situation in the digital asset industry.
Gary’s latest crypto attacks. It’s definitely personal for him… pic.twitter.com/b0UcDx4I92
— Coin Bureau (@coinbureau) June 8, 2023
In his opinion, the norms of the current legislation are fully applicable to industry participants. The universal rules set out measures to protect investors, including disclosure, prevention of fraud, manipulation, conflicts of interest, separation of funds and functions, and other requirements, Gensler said.
Crypto companies are able to comply with the established standards and they should not refer to financial innovations in this case, the head of the regulator is sure. This applies equally to centralized intermediaries like exchanges and DeFi service providers like staking.
He quoted SEC Director of Enforcement Gurbir Grewal:
“You can’t just ignore the rules because you don’t like them or prefer others – the implications for investors are too great.”
It was the willful failure to comply with the norms adopted in the traditional market to protect investors that led to the collapse of projects like Terra and caused the bankruptcy of BlockFi, Celsius, FTX or Genesis, Gensler believes. Claims filed by the SEC against Bittrex, Binance and Coinbase also do not go beyond the existing norms, he stressed.
“Ultimately markets are based on trust. It has relied on compliance with securities laws for 90 years. The crypto industry should not undermine the trust of the public deserved by the capital markets and harm investors,” Gensler concluded.
Recall that the head of the SEC expressed doubt about the need for cryptocurrencies in the modern world, since fiat money like the dollar or the euro is already digital.
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