When asked how the SEC plans to work through its immense backlog – which its team has just promised to add to – Hirsch conceded that his organization is already working at full capacity and that it simply does not have the manpower to go after every platform it would like to at the moment.
“There are more tokens extant — I think maybe 20,000, 25,000, last I read — than the SEC or any agency has the resources to pursue directly, and similarly, there are a number of centralized platforms out there, some that are acting as unregistered exchanges.” However, many shitcoins, and the companies that mint them, could be effectively neutralized by enforcing regulation on the platforms that allow trading in these cryptocurrencies – many of which have a very small market cap, to begin with.
Ultimately, it is up to the courts to decide whether the SEC is overstepping its boundaries. Upcoming cases will also be able to lean on the legal precedent established in the past few years as the enforcement agency stepped up its scrutiny of the crypto space.