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The SEC Crypto Roundtable Was a Missed Opportunity

Published

2 дня ago

24 марта, 2025

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While Friday’s SEC Crypto Task Force Roundtable was a refreshing change from the prior administration’s “regulation by enforcement” approach, it focused on yesterday’s problems instead of proposals that could shape the regulatory framework that will govern crypto going forward.

Since 1946, the question of whether a product is a “security” or “commodity” has been governed by the Supreme Court’s decision in SEC v. W.J. Howey Co. Courts have struggled to uniformly apply the “Howey” test to digital assets, which should not be surprising because it’s a decades-old decision about citrus groves.

Digital assets do not cleanly fit into either the “security” or “commodity” bucket. They are something entirely new. But the distinction between securities and commodities matters under the law because the SEC regulates securities and the CFTC regulates products that include commodities.

Congress is considering new legislation that resembles last year’s FIT21 bill. That legislation will move past the outmoded Howey test and sharply define how particular digital assets are classified.

Friday’s roundtable, which included a dozen or so prominent crypto lawyers alongside members of the SEC’s crypto taskforce, should have served as a jumping off point for ideas and proposals that the SEC could use as input to legislators considering the new legislative framework for crypto. But, instead, much of the discussion focused on years-old debates about the four-party Howey Test, and philosophical discussions about the nature of securities.

To be sure, some participants in the roundtable – like a16z General Counsel Miles Jennings – made important proposals, such as Jennings’ call to focus on the economic reality rather than the legal relationship between the issuer and the investor. But much of the panel’s time was spent debating everything from Bitcoin’s use in ransomware attacks to the SEC’s recent staff guidance regarding meme coins.Given the SEC and CFTC will likely share regulatory authority over digital assets in any new legislation, the line between the two regulators is very important to the crypto industry. The goal should be the creation of clear rules that issuers can follow to ensure compliance regardless of whether their token is deemed to be a “security” or a “commodity.”

While I applaud Commissioner Hester Peirce’s creation of the roundtable, along with her characteristic openness and transparency, Friday’s roundtable was a missed opportunity. She should have invited CFTC Acting Chairman Caroline Pham and her team to participate, or at least to attend. The CFTC was not mentioned once during the roundtable, and the crypto industry needs the SEC and CFTC to work together seamlessly in the years to come.

Congress is moving forward with its own answer to the question of when digital assets are securities, whether or not the SEC decides to provide Congress with any input. For the sake of the crypto industry, I hope that Commissioner Peirce’s next roundtable is focused on fostering ideas that will inform the legislation that will shape the industry for years to come.

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FalconX Said to Have Suffered Wave of Senior Staff Departures, Including General Counsel, European Head

Published

3 часа ago

26 марта, 2025

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Crypto prime broker FalconX has seen the departure of several senior staff recently, according to three people with knowledge of the matter.

Among those resigning was Tommy Doyle, FalconX’s European head, according to the sources.

The global chief compliance officer, general counsel, and head of credit at FalconX have also resigned, the sources said, who spoke on condition of anonymity as the matter is private. Two traders also exited the business, the people added.

Two of the people said the total number of departures was a combination of resignations and firings, and numbered between 10 and 15 people.

«Our headcount approximately doubled last year and we continue to grow. We do not comment on personnel matters,» a FalconX spokesperson said in an emailed comments.

Doyle declined to comment.

Prime brokers are essential to financial markets. They provide trading, financing and custody services to large institutions.

Before this wave of exits, Brian Strugats, head of trading at FalconX, had recently left the business, as reported by CoinDesk. He had worked for the firm for more than three years and was based in New York.

FalconX describes itself as the largest, most reliable digital assets prime brokerage for the world’s leading institutions. The company employed 243 people as of February 2023 according to PitchBook data.

The crypto firm was founded in 2018 and was valued at $8 billion at the time of a mid-2022 funding round.

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Now Is ‘Really Good Time’ to Buy Bitcoin, Says Trillion Dollar Investment Manager

Published

4 часа ago

25 марта, 2025

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In a conversation at the Exchange conference in Las Vegas, which has brought together about 2,000 investment advisors and asset managers, Dominic Rizzo, global technology portfolio manager at R. Rowe Price—the firm that handles over $1 trillion in assets—said that now is a good time to have exposure to bitcoin.

He likened the price of bitcoin to a commodity and how investors should think about investing in it. “Bitcoin itself has traded very close to its average cost of mine. So if you think about it like a traditional commodity, that’s actually historically a really good time to have exposure to it when it’s close to its cost of mine,” he said.

In traditional commodity investing, when the cost of mining or extracting a commodity is close to the spot price, it often signals that the commodity’s price might have found the floor or has a limited downside. This is something contrarian investors look for when investing in commodities, as the bearish sentiment could be priced in when such an event occurs. Rizzo seems to be alluding to such a dynamic in play for bitcoin as well if one compares commodity cycles to bitcoin price.

According to MacroMicro blog, the current average price of mining bitcoin is around $84,770, while the spot price is hovering near $87,000.

How to play blockchain and AI revolution

Rizzo also said that he sees blockchain and digital payments as an integral part of fintech and artificial intelligence (AI).

“The world is getting more global, we’re moving from cash to digital payments … so, I think digital payments is really at the nexus of moving money cheaply and taking a software-driven approach to areas that have historically been not software-driven,” according to Rizzo.

He said part of this movement is blockchain, which he believes every investor should have some exposure to, whether through holding stocks of companies like Coinbase (COIN) or Robinhood (HOOD) or those of crypto miners profiting from the evolution of AI.

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SEC’s Crypto Task Force Will Host 4 More Industry Roundtables

Published

5 часов ago

25 марта, 2025

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The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) Crypto Task Force will host four more roundtable discussions with the industry this spring, on topics ranging from tokenization to decentralized finance (DeFi).

The Crypto Task Force’s first roundtable discussion — the kick-off to what Commissioner Hester Peirce, the task force’s leader, has dubbed the SEC’s “Spring Sprint Toward Crypto Clarity” — was held in Washington, D.C., last Friday. A dozen industry lawyers spoke about issues related to the security status of tokens.

“The Crypto Task Force roundtables are an opportunity for us to hear a lively discussion among experts about what the regulatory issues are and what the Commission can do to solve them,” Peirce said in a Tuesday announcement.

The roundtable discussions are just one example of the SEC’s radical overhaul of its approach to crypto regulation. As the agency moves away from the so-called “regulation by enforcement” practiced by former Chair Gary Gensler, its new leadership — including Pierce and Acting Chair Mark Uyeda — have signaled a desire to improve their working relationship with the crypto industry and provide clearer regulatory guidelines to industry participants.

The next roundtable discussion in the series, “Between a Block and a Hard Place: Tailoring Regulation for Crypto Trading” is slated for April 11. The following discussions will cover topics including crypto custody (April 25), tokenization (May 12), and decentralized finance (June 6). Each of the roundtable discussions will take place in Washington, D.C., and will also be livestreamed.