U.S. SEC Chair: Many types of cryptocurrency ICOs are not within the SEC's jurisdiction

ME News, on December 10 (UTC+8), U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Paul Atkins stated at the Blockchain Association’s Annual Policy Summit on Tuesday that many types of Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) should be considered non-securities transactions and thus fall outside the jurisdiction of Wall Street regulators. He explained that this is exactly what the SEC wants to encourage, and according to its definition, these types of assets do not fall under the category of securities. Atkins specifically mentioned the token taxonomy he introduced last month, which divides the crypto industry into four major categories of tokens. Last month, he pointed out that network tokens, digital collectibles, and digital utilities should not themselves be considered securities. On Tuesday, he further clarified that ICOs involving these three categories of tokens should also be viewed as non-securities transactions, meaning they are not subject to SEC regulation. Atkins also noted that, with regard to ICOs, the only category of tokens the SEC believes it should regulate is tokenized securities—tokens that represent securities already under SEC supervision and traded on-chain. He further explained that ICOs span four themes, three of which fall under the jurisdiction of the U.S. CFTC, and the SEC will let the CFTC handle those matters while it focuses on regulating tokenized securities. (Source: ME)