Reacting to the President's Working Group on Financial Markets report on stablecoins issued Monday, SEC Chairman Gary Gensler said Tuesday that the cryptocurrency technology is now essentially a "teenager." The regulator argued that it "will not reach adulthood if it doesn't come within the public policy framework."
In remarks at the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association's annual conference, held virtually, Gensler stated that what's important for the SEC now regarding crypto trading and lending platforms is ensuring that the investing public is protected.
In this new crypto area, Gensler stated, "there's a lot of hype and investors reaching for yield who are hoping to have a little bit better future; but these platforms generally have not come in to either the CFTC or SEC [oversight] to be within an investor protection framework."
The SEC, Gensler said, is "going to be very active trying to bring this [crypto] market into what I'll call the investor protection framework."
Stablecoin Issues
Stablecoins, as Gensler noted Monday in a statement, are crypto tokens pegged or linked to the value of fiat currencies. "The existing stablecoin market is worth nearly $130 billion, having grown 20-fold in the last 20 months," he added.
