SEC Are Holding Their Cards Close To Their Chest In Regards To Bitcoin ETF

Jay Claton, the chairman of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission made his point known that the regulator's strict stance on the Initial Coin Offering compliance in fresh comments to CNBC.

The recent settlements with the SEC have forced two ICO issuers to return their security funding to investors. CNBC’s Bob Pisani and Mike Santoli sat down with Clayton to talk about recent events.

Clayton spoke in a recent interview with CNBC in which the presenters spoke about the recent enforcement deals with ICOs Paragon and Airfox, Clayton reiterated the need to conduct public token sales with the United States consumers in line with SEC guidelines.

Speaking to the reporters, Clayton said:

“We’ve had no ICOs register [with the SEC]. To the extent that an ICO is being conducted offshore or pursuant to a private placement exemption, fine; to the extent that you’ve conducted a public offering in an ICO, it’s non-compliant.”

As reported by CoinTelegraph, both the SEC and the fellow regulator, Commodity Futures Trading Commission have adopted the perspective that even though Bitcoin isn’t considered a security, several ICO token is subject to individual analysis.

“I think we’ve been clear that Bitcoin isn’t a security, but many of the ICOs that you see and talk about – they are securities.”

During the interview, the topic went onto the other related issues which affect the cryptocurrency industry this year including the pending decision on whether to allow Bitcoin exchange-traded funds ETFs to launch.

On all the subjects which were brought up, Clayton kept his cards close to his chest as he basically repeated aspects of the SEC's stance already known to the wider community.

“I’m not going to comment on timing or anything like that, but we’ve been clear on some of the issues that are of concern to us.”

You can take a look at part of the interview in the video below:

In 2017 Paragon and Airfox raised over $25 million from their ICOs and now they must repay millions of dollars to those who invested in fines after they were found guilty of selling unregistered securities by regulators.

What are your thoughts? Let us know what you think down below in the comments!