In her July 21 speech for Blockchain Week Singapore, Securities and Change Commissioner Hester Peirce, recognized among the many business as ‘Crypt
In her July 21 speech for Blockchain Week Singapore, Securities and Change Commissioner Hester Peirce, recognized among the many business as ‘CryptoMom,’ spoke out on her opposition to the SEC’s not too long ago concluded go well with in opposition to Telegram.
SEC motion in opposition to Telegram served neither traders nor mission
Peirce’s speech, entitled “Not Braking and Breaking,” emphasised the roles and duties of regulators concerning innovation, significantly within the gentle of the case in opposition to Telegram that got here to an finish in June.
Telegram had offered $1.7 billion in contracts for GRAM tokens, which might be the native token of the Telegram Open Community. As preface, the commissioner defined:
“Enforcement actions may be instructive to individuals aside from the wrongdoer, however usually are not an applicable mechanism to create new regulation. Our regulatory integrity calls for that enforcement actions be premised on a violation of a clearly articulated statute or rule.”
A standard criticism of the SEC’s actions as they relate to crypto is that they’re governing by enforcement slightly than offering clear guidelines that firms can abide by. Furthermore, Peirce referred to the SEC’s said mission of defending traders and questioned who had been served by shutting down the Telegram Open Community:
“Who did we defend by bringing this motion? The preliminary purchasers, who had been accredited traders? The members of the general public, lots of whom are outdoors america, who would have purchased the Grams and used them to purchase and promote items and providers on the TON Blockchain? Did they actually look to U.S. securities legal guidelines for defense? Would-be innovators, who will now take extra steps to keep away from america?”
This appears to be the primary time that Peirce has publicly positioned herself in opposition to the SEC’s work in opposition to Telegram. Whereas discussing her secure harbor proposal with Cointelegraph again in February, she declined to touch upon the matter — because the SEC requires of ongoing enforcement actions.
Commissioner Peirce couldn’t be reached for remark as of press time.
Outdoors its personal boundaries
Peirce additionally highlighted an attention-grabbing and ongoing argument concerning the international boundaries of the SEC’s authority. Telegram’s proprietor and founder, Pavel Durov, has repeatedly attacked the regulator as making an attempt to dictate international markets. Much less stridently, Peirce prompt that the fee was certainly overstepping:
“Whereas america definitely has probably the most sturdy capital markets on the earth, and whereas we work exhausting to protect these markets with a good and environment friendly regulatory construction, we might do properly to recall that our approach isn’t the one approach. We ought to be cautious about asking for cures that successfully impose our guidelines past our borders.”