Former SEC Chair Jay Clayton in a CBNC interview on Monday expressed astonishment at powerful financial institutions’ rapid adoption of Bitcoin. Moreover, Clayton criticized regulatory overreach, and predicted even wider mainstream acceptance in the near future.
The former chair’s remarks came amid one of the most intense phases of his successor Gary Gensler’s war on cryptocurrencies. Gensler, whose views largely align with those of Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), has led a crackdown on exchanges Ripple and Coinbase. Almost every day brings new twists and turns as the cases wend their way through court.
As SEC Chair, Clayton Was Skeptical
Clayton described a shift in attitudes so rapid that it caught him off guard. Back in 2015 and 2016, cryptocurrencies struck him as an “offshore, retail” fad unlikely to catch on with leading financial firms.
Back then, crypto was “nothing close to what I would say are the core of our financial markets,” he said. Clayton added:
“At that time, if you look at trading of Bitcoin, at the emergence of Bitcoin, it looked like stocks. But it was nothing like it. Now, we’ve seen a development all the way to the point where companies whose reputation in the market matters are saying, ‘You know what? We think that the trading, the custody, those protections around this market are sufficient that we’re willing to put our name on it and offer that product.”
Clayton said the shift in attitudes struck him as an “incredible development.”
He sounded highly positive on the growth of crypto. However, as SEC chair, he was admittedly skeptical of Bitcoin. Studies indicating that some 90% of crypto market activity was wash trading fed this perception, he said.
But that skepticism did not hold. Not in the face of major market players adding crypto to their platforms. Such as the likes of BNY Mellon, Bank of America, and Goldman Sachs.
“The fact that these institutions . . . that are saying, ‘We’re going to put our reputation behind it, I find that pretty incredible,” he said.
Finally, Clayton said that full regulatory approval of Bitcoin ETFs is all but a fait accompli.
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