What's ahead for the crypto space in 2019?
More clarity, but also more guidance and stiffer fraud
penalties, regulators and legal experts predict.
Digital assets and initial coin offerings (ICOs) will occupy a
"significant" amount of the Securities and Exchange
Commission's time in 2019, Jay Clayton, the agency's
chairman, said during recent comments in which he laid out his
regulatory priorities for next year.
ICOs, Clayton said, "can be effective ways for
entrepreneurs and others to raise capital," but "the
novel technological nature of an ICO does not change the
fundamental point that, when a security is being offered,"
securities laws must be followed.
Pointing to the agency's new Strategic Hub for Innovation
and Financial Technology (FinHub), Clayton said the SEC's
"door remains open to those who seek to innovate and raise
capital in accordance with the law."
