Between Gary Gensler, the chairman of the SEC, and Senator Bill Hagerty, opinions differ. It is the least we can say. The first puts pressure on crypto exchanges to register with the SEC. The senator left on a two-year grace period in favor of crypto platforms.
Gary Gensler vs. Bill Hagerty: SEC Clams Most Cryptos Are Illegal
A few weeks before Senator Bill Hagerty’s intervention, Gary Gensler once again pointed his finger at cryptocurrencies. For the president of the SEC (US Securities and Exchange Commission), most cryptocurrencies operate illegally. On September 8, he spoke on this subject. For him, the vast majority of digital assets out of the approximately 10,000 circulating in the crypto market are securities.
” The offerings and sales of these thousands of crypto security tokens are covered by securities laws.” Gensler persists and signs, cryptocurrency and stablecoin operators must register and regulate their tokens. In August, for example, the SEC accused crypto startup Bloom Protocol of offering unregistered securities. The regulator has urged the firm to register its tokens or face a $31 million fine.
Senator Bill Hagerty wants to grant a grace period to exchanges
In the face of Gary Gensler’s intransigence, some members of the United States Congress, such as Senator Bill Hagerty, are becoming great defenders of cryptocurrencies. They multiply the steps in favor of this market qualified as innovative. Some pro-cryptos are pushing for all regulation to come from the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) rather than the SEC. Bill Hagerty for his part proposed a new bill.
This proposal aims to establish a two-year grace period for crypto exchanges that list tokens not registered with the SEC. If enacted, the law would protect exchanges from lawsuits slated by the SEC. The grace period begins on the date the commission officially determines that a token is considered an unregistered security, according to Hagerty. The bill also stipulates that exchanges will not be subject to prosecution for failure to register as a broker or national stock exchange. securities.
Registration of exchanges with the SEC: Gary Gensler intransigent
This divergence in position between Gary Gensler and Bill Hagerty clearly speaks to the state of cryptocurrency regulation in the United States. She is unstable. At this point, no one can provide a clear, unambiguous answer to this question: Are cryptocurrencies, yes or no, securities? Gensler made it clear that most crypto tokens are securities that fall under the jurisdiction of the SEC.
However, he understands that some cryptocurrencies are commodities that should be regulated elsewhere. The SEC continues legal action against the exchanges. Coinbase, for example, is currently in its crosshairs. The regulator claims that the cryptocurrency XRP and several tokens offered by Coinbase are securities. To justify himself, he always uses the same argument. For him, most cryptographic tokens are considered securities according to the Howey test established by a 1946 Supreme Court decision.
The regulations of the crypto market in the United States is more blurred than ever. While the SEC is obviously all about cracking down, many believe it would be more effective to create new rules that clarify the status of digital assets.
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