Las Vegas, Nevada – you shouldn’t be a crypto -libertarian who comes and cries for government aid when things are going bad, according to Hester Peirce, the head of Crypto Task Force in the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
“I think sometimes, when something bad happens in this room, people who are remarkably free thinkers come in, libertarian-minded people in and say, ‘Where was the government? Why didn’t you protect me? Hi, Crypto Mom, where’s my rescue?'”
“Come, let’s have some consistency,” Peirce continued. “Yes, you have to have the freedom to make your own choices, and when things go wrong, you have to pick up yourself, dust yourself off, learn from it and do better next time. And that’s the best way to move on.”
Since Republicans took control of SEC, including Commissioner Peirce and newly arrived President Paul Atkins, they have worked to issue statements and directives to separate corners of the crypto sector from the agency’s jurisdiction, including Memecoins, some crypto mining and certain stigecoins. But there is still a path to decision making that the agency has started, while the legislators in Congress are also working to sweep new laws that can further set its agenda.
SEC has a lot of current authority to clarify the nature of crypto -avenue papers, Peirce said, but if people want a US federal regulator for retail, they need Congress to produce legislation to make it happen. She asked the question to her audience on Thursday whether they would have a federal crypto regulator.
“NO!” Someone shouted.
“There you go, you have an answer,” she said.
Peirce said that most crypto -tokens are not securities themselves, and as a result, trading platforms that handle them should not have to register with SEC unless they also touch the securities world.
On the question of Memecoins, as an agency declaration said is outside its enforcement interests, Peirce offered it as an example of where investors need to look to themselves.
“Be an adult,” she said. “If you want to participate in speculation, go for it. But if something goes wrong, don’t complain to the government about it.”
And as for the trend for companies that put digital assets in their own treasuries, she said public companies have the right to do what they like – as long as they properly reveal it.
“They can make their own decisions,” she said. “I’m agnostic.”
