The chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Gary Gensler, has once again come under fire from XRP holders’ attorney John Deaton for what he sees as a blatant attempt to skirt the law in light of the changing momentum surrounding crypto regulation in the United States today.
Deaton cited a recent video interview in which Gensler discussed how securities rules apply to the majority of the industry’s tokens. The crypto lawyer firmly said that, as decided by the Howey test and illustrated by the most recent Ripple judgement, the aforementioned securities regulations do not apply to these coins.
According to Deaton, in practise, securities rules may apply to the “offer and sell of tokens, including #BItcoin (like they did in SEC v. Shavers in 2013).” The outspoken legal expert supported his claim by pointing out that the sort of asset makes no difference as long as the offering made satisfies the Howey test’s criteria.
He called on the top securities officer to “stop ignoring the law” and declared definitely that Gary Gensler could be misleading the public with his position.
Do securities laws apply to crypto?
With SEC executives and crypto entrepreneurs holding radically different views of the security status of these emerging asset classes, this is undoubtedly one of the most explosive topics of discussion in the digital currency ecosystem.
Currently, lawsuits filed against the leading companies in the sector, from Kraken earlier this year to the exchanges Coinbase and Binance, are being supported by these discrepancies. Even though Judge Analisa Torres just made it clear that XRP is not a security in and of itself, the SEC still doesn’t appear to be happy and is considering filing an appeal.
As things stand, the Supreme Court may have the final say over crypto’s legal status.
