US SEC Creates ‘Office of Crypto Assets’ to Focus on Company Filings
The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) plans to establish a new office under its Disclosure Review Program (DRP), which will focus exclusively on the registration of digital assets.
Known as the “Office of Crypto Assets”, the new space was established alongside the Office of Industrial Applications and Services, and was added to the seven existing sector-focused offices under the DRP.
The new office will continue the work currently carried out across the DRP to review company records related to digital assets, according to the SEC’s press release. The regulator believes this will enable DRP to focus its resources and expertise better to solve the unique and evolving problems associated with the rapidly growing sector.
“As a result of recent growth in cryptoassets [industry]… we saw a need to provide greater and more specialized support in DRP’s finance office. The creation of these new offices will enable the DRP to strengthen its focus in the areas of cryptoassets, financial institutions, and facilitate our ability to fulfill our mission,” commented SEC Director of the Division of Corporate Finance, Renee Jones.
The new office is in line with other efforts this year by the SEC to better police the Bitcoin industry. Although not yet officially assigned the role of digital asset watchdog, the SEC has continued to act as the industry’s de facto regulator.
The SEC’s continued dominance in digital asset regulation stems from a firm belief that most tokens are securities, a sentiment Chairman Gary Gensler recently echoed.
“Of the nearly 10,000 tokens in the crypto market, I believe the vast majority are securities. The offering and sale of these thousands of crypto security tokens are covered by securities laws.” Gensler stated in a speech on September 8.
Gensler, also a former CFTC chairman, brushed off some of the popular defenses of the ‘crypto bros’, saying:
“It’s not about whether you created a legal entity as a non-profit and funded it with tokens. It’s not whether you depend on open source software or whether you can use a token within some smart contract… Promoters market and the investing public buy most of these tokens, estimating or expecting profits based on the efforts of others .”
The new office comes months after the SEC doubled the number of employees in its Cyber Unit, which it also renamed the Crypto Assets and Cyber Unit.
See: SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce on Bitcoin Association’s Blockchain Policy Matters
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