US regulator takes aim at every crypto except Bitcoin

by James · February 27, 2023

Cryptocurrency

The chairman of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission has said that every cryptocurrency except Bitcoin should be considered a security.

Gary Gensler told New York Magazine that projects “are securities because there is a group in the middle and the public expects profits based on that group”.

This will bring them under its purview.

The news was welcomed by MicroStrategy co-founder and executive chairman Michael Saylor, a well-known Bitcoin maximalist.

“Consensus is building that everything in the #Crypto industry other than #Bitcoin is a security, destined to be regulated by the SEC,” he tweeted. “This makes BTC the only crypto-asset suitable for use as global money.”

However, Jake Chervinsky, an attorney and policy director at the Blockchain Association, indicated that following through on this would be impractical for the SEC.

“Chairman Gensler may have predetermined that all digital assets except bitcoin are a security, but his opinion is not the law,” he tweeted.

“The SEC lacks the authority to regulate any of them until and unless it proves its case in court. For each asset, each one, individually, one at a time.”

Gabriel Shapiro, general counsel at investment firm Delphi Labs, said that if Gensler had his way, more than 12,300 tokens — worth about $663 billion — would become illegal.

“SEC registration is not only too expensive for most token creators – there is also no clear path for registering tokens,” he tweeted.

“What’s the plan here? Since registration is not possible, everyone can just pay huge fines, stop working on the protocols, destroy all dev premines and delist from trading. That would mean 12,305 lawsuits.

“What’s the plan? We’re all fooled, and billions of Americans [dollars] is at risk.”

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Ukraine has received $70 million in crypto donations since the start of Russia’s invasion a year ago — including $28.9 million in Ether, $22.8 million in Bitcoin, and $11.6 million in Tether.

India’s plan to coordinate global crypto regulation, which was submitted during the recent G20 meeting, has received support from the International Monetary Fund and the United States. It says it does not favor an outright ban, but the IMF would not rule it out as an option.

The European Commission has launched a blockchain regulatory sandbox “to facilitate dialogue between regulators and innovators for private and public sector use cases … legal advice and regulatory guidance will be provided in a safe and confidential environment”. The sandbox will host 20 blockchain startups every year until 2026. Applicants will be selected by academic experts from European universities.