The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is a bully. This is what we’ve been saying for some time. It’s bullying crypto firms into submission whenever it can. It runs after them with an air of persecution and is working hard to ensure they don’t have a financial future in America.
The SEC Is Suing So Many Companies
However, upon news that the agency is going after big names like Binance and Coinbase, it’s likely the problem travels much deeper. It’s easy to simply give the SEC a bully label and move on. It’s easy to assume it’s a nasty kid on the schoolyard that hurts everyone and everything that doesn’t do what he wants, but there are more elements to this equation that need to be looked at truthfully if things are going to be fixed.
Binance, Coinbase, Bittrex, Kraken… These are not small figures in the world of crypto. These are some of the largest players around, and the idea that the SEC is willing to go after them so easily suggests several things. One is that the agency just hates that crypto assets sit outside its jurisdiction. It’s power hungry and wants all financial products and tools to fall in line.
However, one could argue that at this stage, the lack of clear rules means something is really going wrong. The idea that all these companies could allegedly (in their minds, anyway) be operating cleanly only to be attacked out of nowhere by the nation’s biggest financial watchdog suggests that the rules in crypto are nowhere near as understandable as all these companies say they are.
It can’t be that all these companies that have been around for so long (Coinbase has been in business for over a decade, for example) are trying to commit crimes and be out of compliance, so this is a clear indication that rules need to be set in stone and, sadly, regulation is likely a necessity.
Regulation Is Likely Necessary, Now
We say “sadly” because regulation was initially not supposed to be an element of the crypto industry. It was supposed to be that the people (the users) were in charge, and all prying eyes and middlemen were cut out of the equation, but so long as this age of persecution exists (and it doesn’t appear to be stopping anytime soon), the time has come to realize that nationally recognized laws need to be in place for things to function.
It’s also disappointing that the SEC has not done anything to aid in the creation of these rules. It just wants to sue people. Perhaps rulemaking isn’t its line of work, but if there really is no end in sight for these crypto-based lawsuits, perhaps the time has come to focus on regulation once and for all.
