As a reminder, the US Securities and Exchange Commission had time to do some serious damage to the digital asset industry in 2023. In particular, the regulator banned the staking platform from cryptocurrency exchange Kraken for US residents, and also shut down the issuance of new BUSD Stablecoin tokens from Paxos and Binance.

The decision was not popular among cryptocurrency enthusiasts. Still, the listed companies operate in accordance with US regulations and willingly cooperate with various agencies around the world. Here, the SEC once again took advantage of so-called retrospective enforcement, i.e. punishing companies for their actions in the past. Alas, it was essentially impossible to avoid, because staking platforms and stackablecoins in the US are still regulated through securities laws created in the 1930s.

The situation with the regulation of digital assets in the US has proved so absurd that some big names in the cryptocurrency industry have been forced to familiarise themselves with new jurisdictions. The day before, representatives of Coinbase announced the launch of an international cryptocurrency exchange – whose services cannot be used by Americans at the same time -. Read more about the decision along with its rationale in a separate article.

Should cryptocurrencies be regulated?

If the Commission really wants to achieve a better path forward for the crypto industry, it needs to act differently. Here’s what journalists think about it.

With proper network identification requirements, blockchains could even be far more transparent and far less conducive to crime than the current banking system.

And this is indeed the case, as transactions on the blockchain network are available to everyone. Consequently, there is no way to hide any transfer from outside eyes. At the same time, banks do not tell ordinary people what investment instruments they use to generate returns.

In the context of comparison, it is worth noting that the traditional banking system has suffered one crisis after another over the past few months. The day before, another major bank called First Republic Bank in the US collapsed, with its share price plunging more than 75 per cent in a couple of days. Against this background, regulators decided to sell assets of FRB to another banking giant JPMorgan.

In order not to lose out on the potential benefits of the crypto market, US authorities should allocate a special type of regulation to crypto exchanges. They could legally trade assets that don’t fall into existing categories like securities or derivatives. Here’s a quote from The Block on the subject.

Such a structure would give the US Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission broad powers to quickly rid the market of thousands of miscreants, while not getting bogged down in the details of definitions or reducing their powers in their traditional jurisdictions.

That is, Bloomberg’s editors suggest that crypto should be separated into a separate and fundamentally new asset class, followed by the development of appropriate rules for it.

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A tough policy on digital assets is definitely not the trump card of Lisa Cameron, a UK MP since 2015. The day before, she attended a cryptoconference called Consensus 2023, during which she shared her own views on crypto control in her country. Here is the official’s quote, as cited by Cointelegraph.

I am in favour of introducing regulation that maximises the potential of the industry while protecting consumers.

Cameron revealed that she first began advocating for cryptocurrency regulation in the UK government after one of her constituents fell victim to fraud. The politician has since led a working group on digital assets and is working with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who aims to make the UK a “global hub for crypto projects”.

According to Cameron, the fallout from the collapse of the crypto market in 2022 has given the UK an opportunity to “take notice” of potential criminals in the field. Regulators have already announced serious consequences for some crypto firms not complying when advertising services to UK customers.

Many lawmakers and regulators in the US government consider cryptocurrencies “a terrible tool against the traditional economy”. However, as Cameron pointed out, digital assets are regulated far more liberally in other countries. The MP supported Sunak’s stance on the UK becoming a global hub for the crypto market and said that politicians from more than one party were working on the relevant new laws.

She added that she has “not personally invested” in any cryptocurrency due to perceived conflicts of interest that could potentially affect her objectivity in legislation. That said, the UK does have a system in place that allows local politicians to own digital assets.


We believe that the US regulators' actions will certainly not kill the digital asset industry - at least because of the lack of a unified stance on crypto among the various agencies. As noted earlier, SEC Chairman Gary Gensler openly refers to all cryptocurrencies other than Bitcoin as securities, while CFTC officials see them as ordinary commodities. Accordingly, such a contradiction is unlikely to result in anything too negative for coins.

However, harsh sanctions could indeed scare off local crypto businesses and force them to move to other countries. Well, that would remind concerned US policymakers to change their attitudes towards crypto in order to maintain a leadership position in finance. As it became clear in mid-April, not all congressmen share the position of the current head of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Well, some have suggested that he should be fired from his position.