U.S. SEC Chairman on Crypto

[wry]

The Consensus: INVEST crypto conference is going on in New York City, USA this week and one of the feature presenters was the Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Jay Clayton.  The SEC recently took some actions against a couple of crypto start up firms and has been shooting down proposals to make a Bitcoin Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) for years now.  Coindesk had a nice summary along with commentators that I really liked, that's the first link, they also have the full interview posted for those of you who can't get enough regulatory bureaucratic talk!

According to him, apparently the big problem with offering a Bitcoin ETF is that he thinks markets are too easily manipulated and there is a lack of custodial services.

The question that I always wish was asked but that never seems to come up is why is the Bitcoin ecosystem advanced enough to allow BETS on the price of Bitcoin (which is what the current futures markets are) on exchanges but not advanced enough to allow the trading of actual Bitcoin?  It doesn't make any sense to me.

As a commentator pointed out, the custody issue is sort of silly since that is what the blockchain does, it records everything that everyone owns.

Anyway, it was a very worthwhile thing to read since it is so important to what's going on in the broader Bitcoin universe.

Good Summary: https://www.coindesk.com/expert-analysis-sec-clayton-crypto-regulations

The full interview: https://www.coindesk.com/sec-jay-clayton-consensus-invest-video

[wry]

There was an interesting update to the SEC and ETF approval today.  One of the SEC commissioners said he expected a BTC ETF would eventually happen.

Quoting the article:  

Quote

 

Robert J. Jackson Jr., in an interview published by government-focused news source Roll Call on Wednesday, said:

“Eventually, do I think someone will satisfy the standards that we’ve laid out there? I hope so, yes, and I think so.”

 

This is big news as now that Fidelity and some other brokers have locked down the custody issues the only remaining one seems to be price manipulation and as the Bitcoin trading systems become more sophisticated that threat will decline.  

I found the article very encouraging:  https://www.coindesk.com/sec-commissioner-says-bitcoin-etf-will-be-approved-eventually