GuShiio.com In the current panicked market conditions, a series of recent actions by U.S. financial regulators imply that the previous tough attitude towards cryptocurrencies is softening, and the hostile regulatory “ice” of the previous institution is slowly melting.
Author: Techhub Hotspot Express
Author: Yangz, Techhub News
Unlike the recent gradual warming of temperatures, the cryptocurrency market has been declining since Bitcoin fell below US$90,000 on February 25. At around 10:50 today, Bitcoin fell below the US$80,000 mark, hitting a new low in nearly three and a half months. Coingalss data shows that in the past 24 hours, the amount of open positions across the network reached US$728 million, of which approximately US$621 million was opened for multiple orders and approximately US$107 million was opened for short orders. In addition, according to Alternative.me data, although today’s cryptocurrency panic and greed index has rebounded from yesterday, it is still in an “extreme panic state.”
However, in this panicked market situation, a series of recent actions by U.S. financial regulators imply that the previous tough attitude towards cryptocurrencies is softening, and the hostile regulatory “ice” of the previous institution is slowly melting.
The attitude of the new US SEC
If the previous U.S. SEC led by Gary Gensler was full of hostility towards the cryptocurrency industry, then the attitude of the new U.S. SEC was a positive embrace. Since Gary Gensler officially stepped down on January 21, the new US SEC, under the leadership of Acting Chairman Mark Uyeda, is working hard to change its face in people’s minds.
In the past week, the U.S. SEC has concluded investigations and enforcement actions against OpenSea, Robinhood Crypto, Uniswap Labs, and Gemini, and officially dropped its lawsuit against Coinbase and plans to drop its lawsuit against Consensus Sys and MetaMask. In addition, Binance and the U.S. SEC filed a joint motion in the middle of this month to apply for a 60-day suspension of the lawsuit on the grounds that “the newly established cryptocurrency working group may have an impact on the case.” This is the first time that cryptocurrency-related litigation has appeared since Mark Uyeda became acting chairman. Request for suspension. Affected by this, the Tron Foundation and Sun Yuchen also filed a joint motion with the US SEC to suspend the lawsuit.
In addition, with regard to the controversial Memecoin, the US SEC also changed its previous ambiguous attitude and issued clear guidance, saying that it “does not belong to a securities, but is similar to a collectibles.” The U.S. SEC believes that the Memecoin transaction does not involve the issuance and sale of securities under federal securities laws. Therefore, individuals involved in the issuance and sale of Memecoin are not required to register their transactions with the Commission under the Securities Act of 1933, nor are they required to comply with the registration exemption provisions of the Securities Act. Of course, the department also pointed out that buyers or holders of Memecoin are not protected by federal securities laws.
Perhaps because of the recent objective situation of the market being cold, coupled with the proactive and frequent signal release by the US SEC, people have begun to observe the huge changes it has made. In fact, since the establishment of the new SEC, various actions have not stopped.
A day after Gary Gensler officially resigned, Mark Uyeda announced the establishment of a cryptocurrency task force, led by Hester Peirce,”committed to developing a comprehensive and clear regulatory framework for cryptocurrency assets.” Subsequently, on January 24, the US SEC officially revoked the crypto asset accounting standard SAB-121, which was the “first shot” of a comprehensive reform. Since then, the U.S. SEC has begun to reduce the size of its cryptocurrency enforcement department, transferred some lawyers and staff to other departments, and formed a new task force to announce ten tasks such as checking the status of different types of crypto-assets under securities laws and providing clear statements on approving or disapproving crypto-ETFs. Next, we saw various news about the U.S. SEC’s trial of ETFs, such as publicly soliciting comments on the grayscale Litecoin ETF, accepting the 19b-4 application of the grayscale Solana ETF, accepting the application of the grayscale XRP trust conversion ETF, accepting the 19b-4 application submitted by Cboe BZX to add pledge functions to the 21Shares Ethereum ETF, etc.
All of this portends that the new SEC will present a completely different image.
Other regulatory developments outside the US SEC
In addition to the U.S. SEC’s active reforms in cryptocurrency regulation, other regulatory developments are also worthy of attention.
The U.S. House Ways and Means Committee recently voted 26 to 16 to abolish the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)”DeFi Broker Rules”, which is a big plus for DeFi. It should be noted that the resolution still needs to be approved by a majority of the House and Senate and signed by the President before it can take effect.
In addition, at the recent first hearing of the U.S. Senate Banking Digital Assets Subcommittee chaired by Cynthia Lummis, legislative progress on stablecoins became the focus. Lummis emphasized that stablecoins will be the top priority for the subcommittee in the future and “plans to develop a bipartisan legislative framework for stablecoins and their market structures in the coming months.” Timothy Massad, former Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), also suggested at the hearing that lawmakers should prioritize the legal framework of stablecoins and defer issues related to market structure. In addition, Virginia Democrat Mark Warner asked panelists to discuss the possibility of stablecoin users going through the KYC process.
At the same time, more and more government departments are accelerating their listening to voices from the cryptocurrency industry. For example, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent recently hired Galaxy Digital legal adviser Tyler Williams as a digital asset and blockchain technology policy consultant. According to Michael Saylor, he recently met with French Hill, Chairman of the U.S. House Financial Services Committee, and proposed a set of recommendations for a digital asset regulatory framework.
These measures from governments, regulators and industry leaders all mark that the regulatory environment in the cryptocurrency field is gradually maturing. In this context, although the current market is cold, in the long run, the cryptocurrency market may usher in a healthier and standardized period of development.
Beyond regulation, the progress of states ‘strategic bitcoin reserves
Unlike the direct regulatory benefits released by the US SEC and various institutions, although the strategic bitcoin reserves of various states have not progressed so smoothly, they are still generally positive.
The “Bitcoin Laws” website established by Julian Fahrer shows that currently 24 states in the United States have proposed strategic bitcoin reserve bills, with a total of 31 bills. Among them, Bitcoin reserve bills in Montana, South Dakota, North Dakota, Pennsylvania and Wyoming have been vetoed or shelved. The fastest-moving state currently is Utah, and the relevant bill has been submitted to the Senate. Next was Arizona, where the relevant bill was read out by the Senate for the third time. The voting result was 17 votes in favor and 12 votes against, and will now be submitted to the House of Representatives for review. Other states that are relatively advanced include Oklahoma and Texas.(Note: Bills can be introduced in the House or Senate. If introduced in the Senate, they will be submitted to the House after approval by the Senate, and vice versa. If passed by both houses, the bill will be submitted to the governor for signature into law or vetoed. Once the governor signs it, the bill becomes law)
Although the speed of advancement varies among states, the legislative progress of strategic bitcoin reserves marks the importance and adoption of cryptocurrencies by local governments. Although I don’t know the Trump administration’s current preparations for the strategy, it may be more reasonable not to rush to take action.
summary
Although the market is facing severe price fluctuations and panic spreading under the largest hacking crisis in history, it is hoped that the gradual improvement of the regulatory environment will gradually melt the regulatory “ice” of the past like a faint warm wind in spring and inject new vitality into the market. As for the current declining market, I also suggest that you wait and see first.
