and Trade Spot Bitcoin Exchange-Traded Products
Caroline A. Crenshaw
Commissioner Caroline A. Crenshaw
Wasn’t Bitcoin Supposed to Solve This?
I am aware of the grand claims made by proponents of these and similar products. They are disintermediating the financial system. Banking the unbanked. Enhancing freedom. Changing the world. And when I read the whitepapers, it can be hard not to buy in. Many of the goals of the crypto ecosystem are goals I support. How can you be against freedom and prosperity? But when I look at products like the ones at issue in today’s approval, I have a simple question: wasn’t bitcoin supposed to solve this? If the technology is so revolutionary, why do so many of its uses seem to revolve around recreating the existing financial system, except with less regulation, more opacity, fewer investor protections, and more risk?
Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer system.Individual investors in the U.S. who want to invest in the product may already do so, either by mining it themselves or by setting up a wallet and buying it from someone else, each of which they are able to do from the comfort of their living room. That is the whole point of creating a new, censorship-resistant digital currency. So why is so much energy being expended on linking it to the existing financial system? I fear that our actions today are not providing investors access to new investments, but instead providing the investments themselves access to new investors in order to prop up their price. While this is in the interests of the sponsors of the ETPs, as well as the law firms and service providers who will get paid by them, my duty is to consider investors, markets, and the public, whose overall interests I do not believe are in fact well-served today.
https://www.sec.gov/news/statement/crenshaw-statement-spot-bitcoin-011023
The problem with her position is twofold. First and foremost, it is NOT the SEC’s job to protect investors from wasting money or making poor investment decisions. It is their job to ensure those products are not fraudulent/manipulated/etc. Second, her argument about how “why doesn’t Bitcoin ‘fix this’ is a cynical one. There is no reason why Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies cannot exist outside the existing financial system and also interact with it and thereby extend it. Her words seemingly in support of Bitcoin’s vision are actually just a cynical attempt to see it strangled.
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