One of the new Securities Exchange Commisssion (SEC) commissioners appointed last May, Mark Uyeda, said at this week’s “SEC Speaks 2022” conference that regulation by enforcement is not in the public’s interest for creating effective guardrails for crypto.
By doing so, Uyeda joins fellow SEC commissioner Hester Peirce in taking issue publicly with Chair Gary Gensler’s current approach for regulating cryptocurrency.
His view isn’t a total surprise given the politics. Gensler is part of the 3-2 Democrat majority on the SEC’s Commission. Uyeda is a Republican along with Peirce.
Nevertheless, Uyeda is not new to the inner-workings of the SEC having worked on its staff since 2006 as an advisor to Chairman Jay Clayton among others as well as serving a securities counsel to the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs’ minority staff and as an advisor to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D, CA) according to Bloomberg.
The speech
Uyeda’s speech on crypto zeroed in on the potential loss of innovative firms in the United States. Just yesterday, Chair Gensler stated in answer to a related question by former Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker at NYC Summit that innovation only occurs in the public sector with the help of academics and “tinkerers.” It was an awkward moment considering the room full of entrepreneurs gathered in front of him. Risk-taking entrepreneurs are often considered the heart of innovative products and companies in crypto or any industry.
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