The US Securities and Exchange Commission looks to reset its relationship with the crypto industry even before a permanent chairman is confirmed by Congress. The latest effort was Friday’s round table, which hosted SEC’s headquarters in Washington, DC and with a dozen lawyers representing different views and positions in the crypto industry.

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The story

SEC’s reset began when acting chairman Mark Uyeda launched a crypto task force and monitored his agency withdrawal of staff Accounting Bulletin 121, dropping a number of ongoing lawsuits, pausing a few more and publishing more staff statements about how the agency can look at Memecoins and evidence of work mining.

Why it matters

SEC is arguably the most important federal regulator in crypto at the moment. While its sister agency, Commodity Futures Trading Commission, may be the regulator that one day can oversee crypto -spot markets, right now it is SEC that most companies in the sector look at guidance on what, exactly, they can do.

Breaks down it

The round table was divided into two portions (three if you count the initial remarks from the three commissioners): An approx. 90 minutes of moderated panel discussion, led by former SEC Commissioner and Pared’s strategies founder Troy Paredes, and a 90-minute town hall still moderated by paredes but with questions from the ordinary public.

You can read Coindesk’s coverage of the panel discussion at this link.

Although the central question during the discussion was – as it has been for years – when and how exactly is a crypto or crypto transaction a security, affected panelists everything from Crypto’s role in increasing ransomware to how accurate companies should work.

Chris Brummer, CEO of BluPrynt and professor at Georgetown Law, opened the discussion with his analysis of what the Howey test actually means: We say basically when you have savings that is a matter of investor protection. The ordinary business development that we are all familiar with is really tackling some kind of delivery of problems. “

“It really just goes to information asymmetries, and then the question of profits goes to investor psychology, greed and fear, the kind of thing that can distort decision making,” he said. “And basically when you have all these factors together you have a mandate information [rule]”

SEC’s approach has so far limited a number of crypto projects, said Delphi Ventures General Counsel Sarah Brennan. While many Crypto projects are intended to have a broad initial distribution, the “spectrum of the use of securities law” means that many projects work more as if they will become public than actually embrace the crypto aspects of their projects.

“We see more and more that the token is the product … There are different ways that people artificially support price, and it has generally been, I would say, kind of toxic to the market,” she said.

John Reed Stark, a former SEC lawyer, said “the” economic reality of transaction “is critical.

“But you want to look at what the people who buy crypto are not collectors,” he said. “We all know they are investors and the SEC’s mission is to protect investors.”

It is back to see how SEC’s efforts will continue, but the agency takes a more active role in public to engage in these issues and the industry seems to be answering. SEC Auditorium was at times about three -quarters fully to say something about someone who stood in livestream.

• When Congress talks about its earth-shy crypto bill, regulators are already at work: Federal agencies are not waiting for Congress or even their firm heads to get busy with crypto -policy decision making, Jesse Hamilton noted in this prescient analysis that came ahead of SEC’s Pow Mining declaration and OCC’s reputation risk showing.
• Proof-of-Work Crypto Mining does not trigger securities legislation, SEC says: Overall and solo-proof-of-work mining is outside SEC’s jurisdiction, the agency said in a staff statement.
• US Bank Agency cuts ‘reputation risk’ from exams after the crypto sector quotes questions: The Office of the Currency Controller removed “Reputy Risk” from its Supervisory Manual, it told National Bank’s Thursday.
• XRP zooms in 10%as Garlinghouse says SEC is releasing the case against Ripple: Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said SEC agreed to hand over his appeal of a July 2023 decision that Ripple did not violate federal securities laws by selling XRP to retail investors by making it available through exchanges and that the case itself is close to an end.
• Digital Chamber gets new boss as Krypto -Lobbyists embrace friendlier Washington: Founder of Digital Chamber and CEO Perianne Boring will step down next month and become chairman of its board of directors. The President of the Lobby Organization, Cody Carbone, is taking over as CEO.
• Crypto Exchange Bithumb Raided by South Korean prosecutors over the assertions of substrates: Report: South Korean prosecutors have launched a study of Crypto Exchange Bithumb, looking at claims of sub -strikes.
• Inside Pump.Funs Plan to Domin Solana Defi Trading: Pump.Fun launches a token -swap service in an attempt to get a sample of the fees generated by automated market manufacturers at Solana.
• Gotbit -founder Aleksei Andriunin pleads guilty to wire fraud, market manipulation: Aleksei Andriunin, the Russian citizen, who told Coindesk in 2019 that he ran a Wash trade service to get cryptocurrencies to have greater liquidity and market value than they actually do, pleaded guilty to market manipulation and wire fraud in a request.
• NASDAQ changes to the day of stock trading partially due to crypto, says Exchange Executive: Nasdaq and New York Stock Exchange both work towards trading around the clock at least partly because of Crypto Trading was already around the clock, Nasdaq’s head of US shares said and stocked products Giang Bui.
• SEC President Nominated Paul Atkins to meet the Senate Panel next week: SEC President Nominated Paul Atkins and Comptroller -Nominated Jonathan Gould face the Senate Bank Committee for their confirmation hearing next week.
• The US Government Removes Tornado Cash Sanctions: A few months after the fifth Circuit Court of Appeals gave up that the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Asset Control could not sanction smart contracts, ofac removed its sanctions against Crypto -Mixer Tornado Cash.

Tuesday

• 15:30 UTC (11:30 am et) The Federal Judge, who oversees the US Ministry of Justice’s case against the founders of the Samorai Tevebog, held a state conference consultation in the case. According to my colleague Cheyenne Ligon, who participated, the 7-minute consultation dealt with a few procedural affairs but did not dive into the content of the case.

Thursday

Friday

• 17:00 UTC (13:00 ET) The US Securities and Exchange Commission held a roundtable event with legal experts from Crypto Industry and the SEC staff.

• (Reuters) Another tribe of bird flu – this time H7N9 – has hit the US for the first time since 2017. This is at the top of the ongoing H5N1 epidemic.
• (Cnn) Amtrak CEO Stephen Gardner said he would step down from leading the quasi-public transit company in the White House.
• (Bloomberg) Coinbase is in advanced conversations to acquire derivatives platform deribit, Bloomberg reported after Coindesk’s reporting last month that the exchange was interested in the company.
• (Cable) A former meta employee wrote a story about her experiences at the company, and Meta goes out to limit its distribution. Careless people have since risen to become a bestseller on Amazon.
• (Bloomberg) Bloomberg profiled New York Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand’s role in pressing for crypto legislation in the Senate.
• (Politico) Trump -Administration’s plans for USAID include reform of it and “Leverag[ing] Blockchain technology to secure transactions, “Although this document policy achieved does not include much more detailed details.” All distributions will also be secured and tracked via blockchain technology to radically increase security, transparency and traceability, “says the document. If you are one of the people pushing for blockchain integration with the US government, we should chat.
• (The Guardian) Trump administration rendered more than 200 men with Venezuelan origin to an el Salvadorian prison, potentially contrary to a court decision and without holding hearings or litigation. While the administration said in public statements that all 238 men had ties to the Tren de Aragua band, which in turn took direction from the government of Venezuela, officials in court documents said that many of the people who were flown to El Salvador did not have criminal items. Family members of many of these individuals say they were not criminal and did not have bang. Some of the individuals allegedly signed deportation papers and expected to be flown back to Venezuela. US intelligence agencies apparently also found that TDA was not tied to the Venezuelan government, The Times reported.

If you have thoughts or questions about what to discuss next week or any other feedback you would like to share, feel free to e -mail me at [email protected] or find me at bluesky @nikhileshde.bsky.social.

You can also participate in the group interview at Telegram.

See you next week!