are both alleged to have violated the law by operating as securities exchanges without registering their businesses with the SEC. Binance faces additional charges, along with its CEO, of diverting customer funds to a separate business, among other accusations. Most recently, the SEC asked a federal judge to freeze the assets of Binance’s U.S. platform.
And leading regulators are more open about their thoughts on the merits of cryptocurrency. SEC Chair Gary Gensler told Bloomberg on Tuesday: “We don’t need more digital currency … we already have digital currency — it’s called the U.S. dollar.” Whether companies that trade in crypto decide it makes business sense to register with the SEC, or drop their businesses all together, will determine the landscape of the industry in the future, Pantana said. The reverberations of the litigation could put some companies out of business, she said.
Despite the increased scrutiny from regulators, the crypto industry was expecting Congress to eventually intervene and help legitimize the industry through new laws.last year by Democrats and Republicans that would have put crypto under the authority of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and made other products, including stable coins, more legitimate by standardizing what assets those products could hold.
The most viable piece of legislation sits in the House Financial Services Committee, spearheaded by Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., who chairs the pane. The legislation was co-authored by Glenn Thompson, R-Penn., chairman of the House Committee on Agriculture.seeks to delineate agencies' jurisdiction over certain digital assets and “strike the appropriate balance between consumer protection and encouraging responsible innovation,” McHenry said in a news release.