During a recent interview with Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler compared stablecoins to poker chips:
Stablecoins acting are almost like poker chips at a casino right now.
He reiterated that cryptocurrencies pegged to fiat money may have some attributes of investing contracts.
Gensler said that security rules give the agency “great authority” over cryptocurrencies. He also made a case for cooperating with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission but noted that very few cryptocurrencies can be classified as commodities:
Some of these tokens, few of them, have more attributes of commodities.
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He praised crypto (particularly, Bitcoin) for being "a catalyst for change" and challenging central banks and traditional financial institutions.
However, the head of the much-feared securities watchdog also said that crypto is rife with “fraud, abuse and hucksters,” which is why it needs greater protection:
We have to ensure investor and consumer protection; that's what an agency like ours, the SEC does.
Vladislav Sopov
Dan Burgin