More BTC Regulations Are Coming, Warns Former SEC Chairman

More BTC regulations are coming despite Bitcoin not being considered security which doesn’t mean that it should be regulated warned former SEC chairman Jay Clayton as we read more in our latest Bitcoin news today.

Former US SEC Chairman Jay Clayton suggested that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies will be more regulated in the future. He commented during an interview with CNBC’s Squawk Box yesterday:

 “I expect that regulation will come in this area both directly and indirectly.”

Clayton became a crypto advisor to investment company One River Asset Management and noted that while BTC wasn’t security before the even joined the US Securities and Exchange Commission and said:

 “It does not mean that it should not be regulated. In fact, where digital assets land at the end of the day, which is very much a wide-ranging question, […] will be driven in part by regulation—both domestic and international. And I expect, and I’m just speaking as a citizen now, I expect that regulation will come in this area both directly and indirectly. Whether it’s through how these are held at banks, or securities accounts, taxation, and the like.”

Today, we filed our preliminary legal response to the SEC’s complaint. With it, we start to set the record straight and correct many misconceptions and contradictions within their allegations. 1/5 https://t.co/8KVBuSzCGH

— Stuart Alderoty (@s_alderoty) January 29, 2021

Clayton’s comments came while the SEC is battling Ripple Labs for selling unregistered securities. The regulator filed its $1.3 billion lawsuits last December and alleged that ripple and both of the executives Brad Galringhouse and Chris Larsen earned hundreds of millions of dollars by selling XRP illegally since 2013. The main complaint is that XRP tokens have a few securities characteristics but weren’t registered as such. At the same time, during his tenure at the SEC, the agency clarified that neither BTC nor ETH can be considered as securities but this stance became one of the main lines of defense for ripple, as one spokesperson said:

 “The SEC has clearly picked two winners and ignored a growing and robust industry that is much larger than Bitcoin and Ether.”

"Where digital assets land at the end of the day–will be driven in part by regulation both domestic and international, and I expect that regulation will come in this area both directly and indirectly," says Former SEC Chairman Jay Clayton on #bitcoin. pic.twitter.com/voWcgCFqOH

— Squawk Box (@SquawkCNBC) April 1, 2021

The company is now trying to force the SEC to submit documents that it holds on BTC and ETH demanding clarity on why BTC and ETH aren’t seen as securities and XRP is being singled out, which is why the former SEC commissioner said that more BTC regulations are coming our way.