Gary Gensler spoke of the importance of regulating the crypto industry

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Cryptocurrencies have a future, but only in an “environment of trust,” and the path to regulation will become easier as the space is centralized. This is the conclusion reached by the chairman SEC Gary Gensler and his predecessor, Jay Clayton, during DACOM 2021.

Gensler reiterated that he compares cryptocurrencies to the “Free Banking Era” from 1837 to 1863. In his opinion, there are many projects trying to circumvent the regulation.

“I don’t think this is the right approach. It looks like the Wild West, “- said the head of the SEC.

Finding the industry outside the regulatory perimeter could lead to a loss of public confidence in the technology, the official added. He paid particular attention to the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector.

“I think that the so-called „decentralized finance“ has spurred some real innovation, but there is still some centralization in it, ”said Gensler.

In late October, the chairman of the Commission compared the DeFi situation to the time when P2P lending emerged. In a conversation with Clayton, he repeated his thought:

“Such activities should be similarly regulated.”

The speech of the head of the SEC did not cause a negative reaction from the market. At the time of writing, bitcoin is trading at $ 58,745, having risen in price by 2.8% over the past 24 hours (CoinGecko).

The second largest cryptocurrency in terms of capitalization has added 2.6% in the last 24 hours, reaching $ 4,720. Only USDT, Polkadot and Dogecoin are in the red zone from the top 10.

In May, Gensler called on Congress to clarify the crypto industry’s regulatory framework. In his opinion, a legal framework is needed for digital assets to survive.

The head of the Commission later said that platforms that offer access to tokenized shares need to report to the SEC.

In August, the official warned of increased regulation of stablecoins and DeFi. In his opinion, decentralization does not give immunity from the Commission’s oversight.

In September, the regulator began to study the work of DEX Uniswap and, according to media reports, a number of other projects in the DeFi sector.

At the same time, it became known about the conflict between Coinbase and the SEC over the announced launch of crypto-saving accounts based on USDC at 4% per annum. As a result, the Bitcoin exchange scrapped these plans after the threat of legal action from the regulator.

We will remind, in October, Gensler announced that the Commission had no plans to ban cryptocurrencies, citing the fact that this is the prerogative of the US Congress.

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