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The Securities Exchange Commission held a public forum yesterday, titled “Investing In America: Atlanta Town Hall Meeting”. The town hall was packed mostly because the crowd thought that regulators will speak about cryptocurrency regulation as well as innovation.

Even though the SEC touched base on these topics, the discussions were mostly targeted to ICOs. Currently, SEC’s stance towards ICOs is quite the same – seeing them as securities – even though no specific token or coin was mentioned by name.

The speakers have set a general tone that nearly all of the investment types (which are not cryptocurrencies) are increasing in terms of their complexity and technological advances. However, the agency is improving its own data and technology to keep up and improve the security.

According to Kara Stein, who is a Commissioner of the SEC:

“[Cryptocurrency] has the potential to reduce the cost of investing. It could decease the cost of capital allocation. We are being challenged, we are being disrupted like everybody else is… and one of the things we’re thinking about is how embrace the innovation and make sure it’s used effectively. One thing we are thinking through is how to ideally anticipate and prevent problems before they arise.”

As Stein added:

“I think remaining competitive requires, both us as regulators and market participants, to thoughtfully evolve with the innovation and not react to it after the fact. For example, there are increased risks for pump and dumps and Ponzi schemes, perhaps, because it’s so easy to now invest in that hotel resort community in some African nation.”

Jay Clayton had a different perspective, claiming that he sees massive potential in blockchain’s technology. The SEC Chairman, however, believes that the same regulation that built the US equities are applicable for the market and expects them “to be followed”. As he stated:

“Blockchain technology has incredible promise for securities and other industries. I think we all can agree on that… It greatly reduces transactions costs, including the costs of verification. It’s a powerful technology… That technology, people have used to apply to fundraising… we’ve had pretty clear…rules  on how to conduct fundraising when you’re offering securities. Much of what I have seen in the ICO or token or ICO space, is a security offering… I don’t know how much more clear I can be about it.”

There was no discussion about any coins, tokens, projects or crypto companies in specific at the Town Hall meeting.