SEC Doubles Team Responsible for Protecting Cryptocurrency, NFTs and DeFi Investors
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The United States Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC, has announced that it is expanding its efforts to protect investors in the cryptocurrency market.
To that end, the regulator has announced that it will practically double the staff of the cryptocurrency unit to crack down on abuses in the market. The announcement was made on Tuesday (3) in a statement issued by the SEC.
According to the regulator, the unit will ensure that investors are protected in the cryptocurrency markets.
The focus will be on securities law violations related to: cryptocurrency offerings and exchanges; crypto asset lending and staking products; decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms; non-fungible tokens (NFTs); and stablecoins.
SEC wants to protect digital asset investors
The Crypto Assets and Cyber Unit (formerly Cyber Unit) team is a unit of the broader SEC division. As the statement revealed, the unit will gain 20 more dedicated employees. This way, you will expand the number of team members to 50.
The 20 new hires will include investigative team lawyers, trial lawyers and fraud analysts.
As SEC Chairman Gary Gensler has pointed out, hiring is essential to regulating one of Wall Street’s newest and most popular industries.
Gensler said the US has the biggest capital markets because investors have faith in them. Thus, as more investors access cryptocurrency markets, it is increasingly important to dedicate resources to protecting them.
“Unit has successfully presented dozens of cases against those seeking to take advantage of investors in the cryptocurrency markets. By nearly doubling the size of this key unit, the SEC will be better equipped to police irregularities in cryptocurrency markets while continuing to identify disclosure and control issues regarding cybersecurity,” Gensler said in a statement.
Also according to Gensler, since its creation in 2017, the unit has filed more than 80 inspection actions. The actions were related to fraudulent and unregistered cryptocurrency offers and platforms.
Strengthening the SEC’s Crypto Unit
Who also celebrated the expansion of the team was the director of execution, Gurbir Grewal. According to him, most victims of cryptocurrency-related securities fraud are individual retail investors.
Furthermore, Grewal noted that cyber threats continue to pose “existential” risks to the US financial system.
“Strengthening the cyber and crypto asset unit will be at the forefront of protecting investors and ensuring fair and orderly markets in the face of these critical challenges,” added Grewal.
The announcement of the staff expansion comes about eight months after Gensler informed lawmakers that the SEC needed more staff to handle the volume of new and complex financial technologies.
