The Hard Truth About FTX
Amanda Heckman|November 19, 2022
The sensational collapse of FTX continues to make waves.
More details are coming to light surrounding the rise and fall of the once-beloved crypto exchange. It’s yet another tale of a hot-to-trot CEO making unethical decisions for his own gain…
Yet no one paid attention.
Who should have been paying attention, anyway?
Oh, that’s right. Regulators.
Big Gov’t has been saying for years that it would rein in all the bad actors in the crypto space. Now here we are. Billions have been lost.
The folks in Washington brought this mess on themselves.
Taming the Wild West
It’s hard to believe that crypto has been around for more than a decade.
And in that time, the ever-evolving sector has been through it all. Breathtaking highs… and crushing lows.
More importantly, it has become entrenched in the economy, the financial sector and the tech sector.
Every day we hear about new use cases… new investments… new adoptions. And only now is the government finally paying attention…
It realizes the wild west must be tamed.
The Enron-sized disaster of FTX may be the catalyst that finally gets things moving.
We won’t rehash the details of the FTX explosion here. Andy succinctly summed up what went wrong – and why it’s not crypto’s death knell – on Thursday in these pages.
Now comes the hard part for Uncle Sam…
Sitting down and finally putting together some sensible regulations for the crypto space.
Dragging Its Feet
This commentary may sound odd coming from Manward, a proudly liberty-minded publication. But if you’ve been paying attention, you know we’ve been saying it all along…
Crypto desperately needs smart, clear regulation. (And to be fair, we haven’t said whether or not we believe it’ll actually get it.) Firm guidelines would legitimize the sector… make it easier to navigate… and quickly kill off any assets that are full of hot air.
At any rate, crypto should at least be held to a similar standard as other SEC-regulated assets.
And crypto companies agree. As Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong wrote in an op-ed for CNBC…
Many – if not most – companies have been working with policymakers for years. Those of us who care about the future of crypto want to create sensible regulation for centralized exchanges and custodians in the U.S. and other regions.
But the federal government has been dragging its feet for years.
The news surrounding FTX suggests we may have finally reached a tipping point. Though there’s still plenty to work through…
A Big Question
One of the biggest questions facing the industry is whether tokens should be considered securities. If they are securities, they should be subject to securities laws and regulations. If they aren’t securities, then what are they?
Answering that question would determine which government agency would have oversight.
As is, the sector has no clarity on the right way to do things.
After crypto’s record-breaking year in 2021… the sector got plenty of attention. And yet it remains in regulatory limbo.
President Biden tried to make a splash when he issued an executive order aimed at the crypto sector back in March.
That order, “Ensuring Responsible Development of Digital Assets,” called on the government to examine the risks and benefits of cryptocurrencies while directing various agencies to come up with a unified approach to regulation.
It was all research and no action.
And in September, the Treasury followed up with a simple framework for rooting out criminal behavior…
And that’s it.
We’ve still seen no real action.
Now, just two months later…
We’ve gotten the FTX disaster.
Finally… the cries for regulation have grown to a roar.
You’ll want to watch the sector closely. The coming months will be pivotal for crypto’s next phase.
And in the meantime, there is one glaring opportunity…
You see, the government’s ineptitude over crypto is why we’re so excited about a brand-new digital asset that ALREADY has regulatory approval.
It’s paving the way for the rest of the crypto industry… and you have the chance to get in on the ground floor. Details here.
