John Reed Stark, the previous director of the Workplace of Web Enforcement at the US Securities and Change Fee (SEC), pushed again towards the concept of regulatory reform on the first SEC crypto roundtable.
The previous regulator stated the Securities Act of 1933 and 1934 shouldn’t be modified to accommodate digital belongings and urged that digital belongings don’t escape the definition of securities beneath the present legal guidelines.
The primary-ever SEC crypto roundtable. Supply: SEC
“The folks shopping for crypto are usually not collectors. Everyone knows that they’re traders, and the mission of the SEC is to guard traders,” Stark stated. The previous official added:
“The quantity of case regulation has developed so shortly due to all these crypto companies. They went for this kind of delay, delay, delay, concept, they usually employed the most effective regulation companies on the earth, and these regulation companies all fought the SEC with unbelievable briefs.”
“I’ve learn each single certainly one of them. And so they misplaced nearly, I’d argue, each single time,” he continued.
Stark concluded that he noticed no innovation in digital belongings or cryptocurrencies in comparison with earlier on-line revolutions, such because the debut of the iPhone.
John Reed Stark, pictured on the far proper, arguing towards complete regulatory reform. Supply: SEC
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John Reed Stark: certainly one of crypto’s staunchest critics
Stark has been one of the vocal opponents of cryptocurrencies and the digital asset business, usually criticizing the business for an absence of transparency and accountability.
In February 2024, the previous SEC official characterised a sponsorship deal between the Dallas Mavericks — a Nationwide Basketball Affiliation (NBA) workforce — and crypto agency Voyager as an settlement with a “heroin manufacturing firm.”
Stark later stated that the federal government company’s regulation by enforcement beneath former chairman Gary Gensler was warranted and added that cryptocurrency must conform to existing laws fairly than the regulation evolving to embrace the way forward for cash.
Stark’s anti-crypto stance has been criticized by business executives and traders as unhinged. In June 2023, notable investor Mark Cuban called out Reed’s views as “crypto derangement syndrome.”
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