THE UNITED STATES SEC VS CRYPTO.
If you are an old-timer in the world of crypto, you must have gotten familiar with always seeing news surrounding issues from the United States SEC. To better understand why the SEC has been a major player when it comes to the affairs of crypto, we will dive deep into what the SEC is and what its primary role is.
The U. S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)
The SEC is an independent Federal agency in the USA, established pursuant to the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, headed by a five-member Commission. The Commissioners are appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. The President designates one of the Commissioners as the Chairman. The present chairman of the SEC is Gary Gensler.
What is the primary role of the SEC?
The SEC has a three-part mission:
1. To Protect investors, maintain fair, orderly and efficient markets and facilitate capital formation.
2. Having come to an understanding of what the SEC is and its basic objectives you can understand a bit better why it is always involved with crypto projects, based or operating in the United States.
3. For better oversight of the activities of crypto companies, the SEC created a Crypto Assets and Cyber Unit in 2017 within the Division of Enforcement.
Ever since its creation, this unit has gone on to bring more than 80 enforcement and more than $2 billion in monetary relief.
The SEC in recent times.
On Nov. 11, 2022, one of the world's biggest cryptocurrency exchanges FTX filed for bankruptcy, this sent a shock wave across the industry and beamed a light of interest on the activities of the SEC in relation to measures it has put in place to avert such situations.
In 2023, the SEC rolled out a lot of policies that have been greeted with high criticism from crypto lovers and major players in the industry, most notably among its actions is when the popular US-based exchange Kraken was fined $ 30 million and was made to shut down its staking services in the US. Just recently, the United States president proposed a 30% Tax on crypto mining electric usage and many other crackdowns on crypto-related services.
The future of Web3 companies and the silver lining.
The SEC recently made its plans on expanding its crypto unit public, this is a clear indication of the growing interest of investors and entrepreneurs of building in crypto. With more clarity, this will boost the confidence of investors and will lead to growth over a period of time thereby increasing the career opportunities in the space.
