The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is focusing on bringing cryptocurrency exchanges “inside the investor protection remit,” Chairman Gary Gensler has revealed. “If the trading platforms don’t come into the regulated space, it’d be another year of the public being vulnerable,” he stressed.

SEC Focusing on Regulating Crypto Exchanges

The chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Gary Gensler, talked about crypto regulation and the SEC’s priorities in a virtual press conference Wednesday.

Gensler said that he’s hopeful cryptocurrency trading platforms will take steps to become more directly regulated in the coming months. The chairman emphasized that additional oversight of crypto trading platforms is crucial for crypto investors to get the same kind of protection they have when trading stocks or other regulated financial instruments.

“I’ve asked staff to look at every way to get these platforms inside the investor protection remit,” the SEC boss revealed, elaborating:

If the trading platforms don’t come into the regulated space, it’d be another year of the public being vulnerable.

Gensler has repeatedly expressed the need to regulate cryptocurrency trading platforms. He believes that many of them are trading securities without registering. In May last year, he said crypto exchanges need more regulation and asked Congress to weigh in.

“We don’t have enough investor protection in crypto finance, issuance, trading, or lending,” he warned in September. “At this time, it is more like the Wild West or the old world of ‘buyer beware’ that existed before the securities laws were enacted.”

In December, the chairman said that the crypto asset class is “rife with fraud, scams, and abuse in certain applications,” emphasizing, “Right now, we just don’t have enough investor protection in crypto.”

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