The US Securities and Exchange Commission looks at custody rules for digital assets, including how brokers dealers, asset leaders and investment advisers can handle cryptocurrency transactions, the head said Friday.
SEC chairman Paul Atkins, who talked about his recently announced project Crypto on Fox Business’ “Morings with Maria” program, said the agency “mobilized in SEC all our various departments and offices” to implement President Donald Trump’s Crypto Working Group’s recommendations to make the United States a more crypto-friendly nation. This includes adjusting rules “that have been around for 90 years or so,” he said.
“We don’t want the crypto assets to be on some flash drive in a person’s drawer,” he said Friday. “They have to be in a safe place … The reason for doing all this and tackling these different rules is to provide some security for people.”
SEC’s work will be based on the legislation passed by Congress, he said, pointing to the already signed genius law and the existing legislative efforts for the market structure.
“Our goal is to get clarity and security,” he said. “It will be understood by what comes out of Congress, but I think we have the authority to move forward in these areas and give this security and clarity to people.”
When asked about a district court that decided the debate card exchanging fees, Atkins said it could support real-time or immediate payment networks and to go against immediate payment runs “would be ideal,” he said.
This type of payment could be strengthened by using a blockchain, he said, though he also said the system might need to have some kind of delay built in to address errors.
“The longer it takes to have approval of some of the transactions, the more risk there is in the system for something to go wrong, some black swan events,” he said.
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