U.S. SEC's Crypto Trading Roundtable Delves Into Easing Path for Platforms

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission could consider a short-term crypto oversight framework to allow firms to keep innovating while the agency works out a more permanent answer to digital assets regulation, interim Chairman Mark Uyeda suggested during a Friday event at the agency's Washington headquarters.

"We should consider whether there may be a more efficient method of regulation under an accommodating federal regulatory framework," said Uyeda, in a recorded statement played at the agency's latest crypto industry roundtable. "While the Commission works to develop a long term solution to address these issues, a time-limited, conditional exempt relief framework for registrants and non-registrants could allow for greater innovation with blockchain technology within the United States in the near term."

The securities regulator is waiting for Congress to deliver a crypto market-structure law that will allow it to start writing the rules that the digital assets sector has been clamoring for. That may happen as soon as later this year, according to the lawmakers working on that effort, but months will pass before its arrival and even longer for the SEC and other relevant federal agencies to write regulations and put them in motion.

During this second in a series of crypto roundtables the agency hosted as it overhauls its digital assets stance, Uyeda was still running the agency, though the incoming chairman, Paul Atkins, is poised to take over. Once he arrives, though, Uyeda and fellow Republican Commissioner Hester Peirce, a crypto advocate, will still be on board.

The Republican commissioners noted crypto platforms' interest in handling both traditionally SEC-regulated activity and business outside the agency's scope, all under the same roof.

"What can and should we do in the short term, and what should Congress consider in the longer term to ensure that the regulatory gaps are filled as firms increasingly seek to combine securities and non-securities trading activity?" asked Peirce, who leads the SEC Crypto Task Force.

The SEC's sole Democratic commissioner, Caroline Crenshaw, argued that some of the market disruptions and company failures in the recent past have forced industry observers to become "painfully aware of the mismatch between investors expectations and reality."

"Crypto trading platforms are unique because, among other reasons, they often perform multiple services under one roof, sometimes including bridge clearing and custody," said Crenshaw. In traditional finance, those kinds of functions are "typically performed by separate registered entities," because they come with a "high risk of conflicts of interest and risks for investors."

Read More: SEC 'Earnest' About Finding Workable Crypto Policy, Commissioners Say at Roundtable