Jay Clayton, former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chairman, gave his opinion about how the organization approaches enforcement in the crypto space. In a Bloomberg Invest panel, Clayton stated that while he supports the agency and the law, the crypto regulation issue should be treated with nuance.
Former SEC Chairman Jay Clayton Calls for Nuance When Dealing With Crypto
Jay Clayton, Former SEC Chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) took a stance on the escalade of enforcement actions the organization is currently taking against cryptocurrency exchanges.
The agency recently slapped Binance and Coinbase, two of the largest cryptocurrency businesses in the world, with illegal brokerage charges, stating that they allowed U.S. customers to purchase unregistered securities.
In a joint Bloomberg panel with Dan Morehead, founder and managing partner of Pantera Capital, Clayton stated that while he supported the SEC and the current law definitions, he had other ideas regarding enforcement.
When asked if he agreed with current SEC Chairman Gary Gensler’s moves, Clayton stated:
When I was there, people would say I was a crypto hawk. We effectively shut down the ICO craze. I do think we are having very blunt conversations about something that requires nuance.
Furthermore, Clayton clarified that crypto and blockchain were just technologies and that using these technologies in different aspects of the financial system should be “non-controversial.”
Tokenization and Stablecoins
Clayton, nominated by Donald Trump and serving as SEC chairman from 2017 to 2020, had to deal with the rise of crypto as an insurgent technology in financial markets. However, while the current SEC chairman Gary Gensler has questioned the value of cryptocurrency, Clayton believes there are valid use cases for crypto and blockchain technology.
One of these use cases is tokenization, a process that uses a representation of an asset in a blockchain to simplify the management of such an asset. Assets and securities tokenization is a business predicted to reach the $4 to $5 billion mark by 2030, according to Citi. Clayton explained using tokenized securities will probably be “more efficient than what we are doing today.”
Clayton also detailed that stablecoins, which are cryptocurrency assets linked to the value of other assets – generally of a fiat token like the U.S. dollar – had a clear use case. He declared:
I am remarkably impressed by the functionality of true stable stablecoins… it is a remarkable technology at the retail level to be able to transfer dollars around the world.
Clayton added that using stablecoins would allow for conducting know-your-customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML) procedures more efficiently and that the U.S. should be looking into this technology.
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