It’s a relevant question once more as watchdogs try to crack down on a largely offshore and patchily-regulated cryptocurrency industry — worth $3 trillion at the peak — and as Binance and other platforms try to draw a line under the FTX scandal by appealing to the credibility of outside advisors. Wall Street’s top regulator is warning investors to be “wary” of how crypto firms promote the often narrow work done by accounting firms and is considering enforcement actions, according to the WSJ.

Auditors and attorneys are viewed as important “gatekeepers” by regulators with responsibilities to fight fraud and money laundering, yet it’s clear that they — like others — missed a bewildering number of red flags at bankrupt exchange FTX. Ex-billionaire founder Sam Bankman-Fried last year showed off his clean bill of health from auditors, tweeting that FTX and its US arm had “passed US GAAP audits,” even as he and his inner circle allegedly engaged in elaborate fraud and misuse of customer funds.

There’s no suggestion gatekeepers took part in wrongdoing. But no alarm bells went off despite FTX’s…