A commissioner with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has called for “a coherent and consistent legal framework that works across all asset classes,” including crypto assets. She warned that the SEC’s current enforcement-centric approach would take 400 years to go through all the crypto tokens that are allegedly securities.

SEC’s Commissioner on Crypto Regulation

A commissioner with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Hester Peirce, talked about crypto regulation in her speech at the “Digital Assets at Duke” conference on Jan. 20.

Noting that the securities regulator has “pursued registration violations in a seemingly random fashion, often years after the original offering,” the commissioner stressed:

We must develop a coherent and consistent legal framework that works across all asset classes. Our imprecise application of the law has created arbitrary and destructive results for crypto projects and purchasers.

“When we insist on applying the securities laws in this manner, secondary purchasers of the token often are left holding a bag of tokens that they cannot trade or use because the SEC requires special handling consistent with the securities laws,” Peirce warned. “Many of these requirements are enforced under a strict liability standard, so clarity is essential.”

The commissioner continued, “Why not set forth a coherent legal framework in a rule?” elaborating:

After all, if we continued with our…