00:00A crypto measure from the SEC is currently under review by the White House, according to a notice posted earlier
00:06this week.
00:06An SEC spokesperson saying in a statement the regulator will consider interpretive guidance around token taxonomy for crypto assets in
00:14line with market structure legislation.
00:17SEC Commissioner Mark Oyeda joins us now to talk about this.
00:20And, you know, it's interesting that you even submit these things to the White House.
00:24Is this a new way that the SEC does business?
00:27Aren't you an independent board?
00:30It's actually the way we've always done things.
00:31I've been at the SEC for 20 years. It has always been this way.
00:34You know, one of the most important things that the White House does is whenever one agency does a rulemaking,
00:39there's an interagency process.
00:41So, I mean, you might think this is a matter of good, common-sense government, but the rest of government
00:46knows that if we're doing something that might affect their area, that they are alerted to it.
00:50So this is a process that's been ongoing for a long time.
00:54President Trump has reemphasized that the White House is going to make sure that all of the bodies that are
01:00accountable to the president make sure that we're submitting it and has a chance for White House review.
01:05Is there increased concern around crypto now that we see what's going on in first Venezuela and then Iran that
01:17people could be using these tokens to commit crimes?
01:20Well, we've had that issue for a long time, and in fact, many of the people involved in crypto have
01:27long registered as money transmitters and have been subject to the AML and suspicious activity reporting requirements.
01:35Now, we're talking about a whole different layer of potential regulation if it is a security or falls outside of
01:41our jurisdiction.
01:42This is something that I've been calling for for years.
01:45I thought we should have done this starting with the Biden administration.
01:49It was unfortunate we did not.
01:51So what Chairman Atkins has done is we are now trying to make up for lost time.
01:55And the most important issue, I think, is whether or not a particular crypto asset is a security or is
02:04it not?
02:04Because if it's not a security, we lose our jurisdictional responsibility for that instrument.
02:09Well, is not this a case of like if you're a hammer, everything's a nail.
02:15Like you must surely think it's a security, right?
02:17You've been thinking about it for long enough to have made a decision.
02:20Well, each crypto is different attributes.
02:24And we've got this 1946 Supreme Court case.
02:27So Bitcoin is different from Ether, is different from Ripple, et cetera.
02:29That's right.
02:30They can be.
02:30And we have plus the thousands of other or probably even tens of thousands of other instruments out there.
02:38What we've been lacking is clear guidance as are you a security or are you not?
02:42We've got this 1946 Supreme Court case.
02:45One of the types of instruments that is a security is an investment contract.
02:48And the Supreme Court said if it involves an investment of money in a common enterprise with the expectation of
02:55profits from the efforts of others.
02:56So what does that mean with crypto?
02:58What does it mean when you have a decentralized apparatus that is behind it?
03:04So what we're trying to do now is to provide SEC adopted guidance.
03:10And this is something that Chairman Atkins has called for.
03:13It's something that both myself and my fellow commissioner Hester Peirce have called for for years when we were in
03:18the minority on the commission.
03:20Because it's not fair to try and bring enforcement actions against people if they don't even know that they've crossed
03:26the line.
03:27So when do you think we're going to get back the White House review?
03:30And then when will this be made public?
03:33Well we're hoping to get this on as quick of a timeline as possible.
03:36But part of this is we want to make sure and the White House wants to make sure that we're
03:40doing everything right.
03:41That we've considered all of the options out there.
03:46We have a process.
03:48We've conducted multiple roundtables last year.
03:52We've received hundreds of comment letters on this issue.
03:55And so now the White House is reviewing the end product of all of our work.
04:00You know you mentioned you've been there for 20 years.
04:02Most of that time I imagine you've had five commissioners right.
04:05Typically you have three members of the party that is currently in the administration.
04:12And two members of the opposition so to speak.
04:15You now have only three Republican commissioners.
04:18And isn't Hester Peirce here.
04:19Her term is expired and she'll be stepping down so you won't even have a quorum.
04:23How do you deal with that kind of I mean it's not good governance.
04:28Well we'll have a quorum no matter how many commissioners there are.
04:31In fact back in the 1990s at one point there were only two commissioners of the same party during the
04:37Clinton administration.
04:38For a good chunk of the time when I was counsel to then Commissioner Michael Pivovar there were only three
04:44members of the commission.
04:45Mary Jo White the former U.S. attorney here in New York for the Southern District was our chair.
04:50And then Commissioner Kara Stein was the other.
04:52So this is not unusual to have vacancies on the commission.
04:56You know the important part is the things that we do are we're subject to the government of the Sunshine
05:01Act.
05:02So the three of us if we get together we have to do it in an open forum.
05:07We have to let the public see it.
05:08And so I don't see it that interfering in anything that the commission does going forward.
05:14We have to let the public see it.
05:14We have to let the public see it.
05:14We have to let the public see it.
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