Billionaire Mark Cuban Explains Why The SEC’s Stance On Crypto Is ‘Incredibly Hypocritical’
In a recent interview, billionaire investor and entrepreneur Mark Cuban criticized the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for the way they handle crypto.
Cuban is the majority owner of the professional basketball team Dallas Mavericks, as well as one of the “sharks” on the highly popular reality show “Shark Tank” (which airs on the ABC television network).
Cuban’s comments were made during an interview (published on August 7) with “Altcoin Daily”.
The Shark Tank star said:
“The SEC is incredibly hypocritical. You know, they talk about trying to protect investors. Do you guys know what Pink Sheets are?… I just looked at this yesterday because two days ago because someone asked me. There are 16,750 Pink Sheet shares…probably approx [the same as] number of tokens. There is no protection for anyone coming from the SEC and it already falls under their purview.
“They are supposed to protect you. There are funds – ETFs and others – that contain stocks from countries that have no SEC-like protection at all. They don’t care. You can still buy them and sell them. There are companies that are bought and sold on major stock exchanges that have no audit rights. You have no idea if the numbers are accurate.
“And then when the SEC comes in and says they want to protect investors from crypto, they’re not even doing their job with the area they’re supposed to be doing their job, and then you have the question of their approach to trying to figure it out. The SEC does this thing called “regulation through litigation”, which means they don’t come out and say “here are the rules that we want everyone to follow, give us your comments”. They are doing what they did with Coinbase. They are suing. And they will sue you, and their hope is that the outcome of the lawsuit will then become a precedent that they can use to enforce the way they want to enforce it.
“It’s not like today someone can just call the SEC and say “OK, we want to issue a token… we have this crypto business, tell us what we need to do”… As a result, there’s all this uncertainty, and that’s why you’ve seen several crypto companies in Singapore, the Bahamas and the British Virgin Islands, the Caymans, all these different places, and people are afraid to do anything here.
“And now you look at the big companies like Coinbase [that] create jobs and they try to do it right… they get pissed off… It was – I forget – which politician said we should do it through the CFTC instead of the SEC and they’re right because the SEC cares more about hiring more lawyers than getting it done right.“
