U.S. SEC Commissioner "Virtual asset regulatory standards have collapsed…market has become like a casino"

JH Kim

Summary

Commissioner Caroline Crenshaw of the U.S. SEC strongly criticized that over the past year the SEC's regulatory standards for virtual assets have collapsed.
She said the virtual asset market is driven by non-economic factors such as speculative sentiment, exaggerated promotion, and wash trading.
She said that because virtual assets still do not have a large share in the financial market, the SEC should focus on other regulatory tasks.

According to foreign media reports on the 11th (local time), Commissioner Caroline Crenshaw of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) strongly criticized that the SEC's regulatory standards have collapsed over the past year and pointed out that the virtual asset (cryptocurrency) market is increasingly beginning to look like a casino.

At an event at the Brookings Institution that day, she said, "Confusion has intensified as the SEC has dismissed or reduced fines in a number of enforcement cases it has pursued for years."

She continued, "A large number of virtual asset investors are moving based on speculative sentiment, exaggerated promotion, and wash trading (self-trading), not economic fundamentals."

Commissioner Crenshaw noted that virtual assets still do not make up a large share of the overall financial market and emphasized that the SEC should focus on other, more important regulatory tasks.