SEC to Open a New Office for Cryptocurrency Filings

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is ready to get more serious in the cryptocurrency industry and enforce necessary regulations to oversee the activities of the digital assets ecosystem.

During a legal conference on Thursday in Washington, it was revealed that the SEC plans to open a new office for cryptocurrency filings alone. 

According to Cicely LaMothe, the Associate Director for Disclosure Operations within the Division of Corporation Finance of the United States SEC, the new office will be under the jurisdiction of his division.

LaMothe mentioned to the audience at the legal conference that the introduction of this office was essential and necessary to tackle the unique and evolving filings recently cropping up in the digital assets ecosystem.

Notably, the most incessant issue in the crypto industry in recent times is that of which assets the SEC sees as securities. 

Based on a statement made at the same legal conference by Gary Gensler, the current Chairman of the SEC noted that “of the nearly 10,000 tokens in the crypto market, I believe the vast majority are securities.”

Gary made this statement on the premise that most of these tokens are unregistered securities. Suggestively, he mentioned that stablecoins likely fall into the category of these unregistered securities. 

Securities And Unregistered Securities

Several industry players have withdrawn from giving a definition to their digital coins as well as registering them as securities due to the regulations which the SEC imposes on such assets. 

At the end of the day, they turn out to have enforcement issues and litigations. Grayscale’s definition of three crypto trusts Stellar (XLM), Zcash (ZEC), and Horizen (ZEN) as securities were recently questioned by the SEC.

Explicitly, the Brazil SEC is seeking means to make adjustments to its cryptocurrency bill owing to the fact that the current bill has failed to define tokens appropriately. The SEC in Brazil stated that it wasn’t clear if these tokens are regarded as digital assets or securities, thus raising a conflict on whether they are under the jurisdiction of the regulator. 

So far, amongst all cryptocurrencies, only Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) officially fall into the category of non-securities. Meanwhile, the newly inaugurated office is still searching for a head to oversee its operations even as it plans to expand to include legal and accounting branches.