U.S. SEC Chair: Many types of cryptocurrency ICOs are not within the SEC's jurisdiction

PANews, December 10 — According to The Block, Paul Atkins, Chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), stated at the Blockchain Association’s annual policy summit on Tuesday that many types of initial coin offerings (ICOs) should be considered non-securities transactions and therefore fall outside the jurisdiction of Wall Street regulators. He explained that this is exactly what the SEC wants to encourage; by its definition, such things do not fall under the category of securities. Atkins specifically mentioned the token taxonomy he launched last month, which divides the crypto industry into four major categories of tokens. Last month, he pointed out that network tokens, digital collectibles, and digital utilities should not, by themselves, be considered securities. On Tuesday, he further stated that initial coin offerings involving these three types of tokens should also be regarded as non-securities transactions, and therefore not subject to SEC regulation.

Atkins also mentioned that, when it comes to initial coin offerings, the SEC believes the only token category it should regulate is tokenized securities—tokens that represent securities already under SEC oversight and traded on-chain. He further explained that initial coin offerings span four themes, three of which fall under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The SEC will let the CFTC handle related matters and will focus solely on regulating tokenized securities.