The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) held a hearing on February 6th, 2018. Written statements by Jay Clayton, the Chairman of the SEC and Christopher Giancarlo, the Chairman of the CFTC have been published several days ago.
The crypto community reacted calmly to the news about the hearing organized by the US regulators. The main topics of the hearing were the cryptocurrencies, ICO projects and the exchange-traded funds (ETF).
In a lengthy statement after the hearing, the Chairman of the SEC, Jay Clayton, repeated his concerns about the need to make a difference between the ICOs as securities and non-securities and hinted that the markets remain unprepared for exchange-traded funds based on bitcoin in the short-term period.
Clayton said: “Investors should understand that to date no ICOs have been registered with the SEC, and the SEC also has not approved for listing and trading any exchange-traded products (such as ETFs) holding cryptocurrencies or other assets related to cryptocurrencies. If any person today says otherwise, investors should be especially wary.”
A joint discussion with the Chairman of the CFTC, Christopher Giancarlo, showed wishes from both sides to create a path for continuous analysis of the cryptocurrency market in the United States.
An article published in the Wall Street Journal pointed out the perspectives of both commissions when it comes to the cryptocurrency ecosystem. The article was published during the World Economic Forum held in the town of Davos in Switzerland. During the forum, numerous politicians and regulators expressed their wishes for international regulatory efforts towards the cryptocurrency world. This topic is expected to be the center of attention during the G20 meeting in Buenos Aires in March this year.
