The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) can almost decide life and death on a crypto project. Just look at the case of Ripple, whose XRP token has been classified as securities. The upcoming appointment of a new SEC chairman is therefore being watched closely in the cryptosphere.
US market watchdog will soon have a new chief
Former SEC chairman Jay Clayton wasn’t necessarily hostile to cryptocurrencies, as long as they didn’t play too much on its sacrosanct securities law (the Securities Act of 1933).
Shortly before his retirement from the post of chairman of the SEC, Jay Clayton even said of Bitcoin (BTC) that not only did the king of cryptos not qualify as securities but that he also considered it “a system. payment and a store of value ”!
According to an article of BraveNewCoin, a mixture of optimism and caution is now set as the favorite candidate of Joe Biden to take the incoming Presidency of the SEC would be Gary Gensler.
The man was notably chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) from 2009 to 2014, the other great regulator of the US markets.
So, good or bad for crypto? We release the 50/50 joker
On the optimistic side , we can say that the man is familiar with the crypto-asset sector and blockchain technology (DLT). According to the crypto-media CoinDesk, which quotes him, Gary Gensler considers that:
“Satoshi Nakamoto – whomever she, he or they are – solved the payments riddle, how to securely move value peer-2-peer on the internet while avoiding double-spending. (…) The potential this technology to be a catalyst for change is real.“
As for caution, it will be remembered that in 2018, the possible future president of the SEC was considering Ripple’s XRP, but also Ethereum (ETH), as potentially securities.
Then in 2019, Gary Gensler was also among the first and most vocal to step up to denounce the old version of stablecoin of Facebook – the Libra – as a security.
As for ETFs ( Exchange Traded Fund ), a version of which replicating the price of Bitcoin has still been under discussion for several years, the mystery about its position remains unresolved. Hester Peirce, who is currently the only member of the SEC to be in favor of a Bitcoin ETF, hopes to be able to work with Gary Gensler to “bring more regulatory clarity to the crypto-asset sector”.
The more and more players in the cryptosphere want just as much! Also hoping that this clarity does not translate into regulations that are too restrictive or blocking for rapid innovation, specific to the crypto sector.
