How worried should investors be about regulatory interest in cryptocurrency and tokens? It depends.

Representatives of U.S. enforcement agencies stressed at the Consensus 2018 conference in New York they want to support digital innovation and emerging markets. However, they still want to monitor it.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission recognize that “cryptocurrencies can evolve and become something different than they are today,” said CFTC Commissioner Brian Quintenz.

“I’m encouraged that the concept of something evolving is being considered in this debate,” he said, arguing that “government regulatory policy should not hinder innovation [or] pick winners and losers [but] should be technology neutral.”

The SEC will place an emphasis on fraud cases involving retail investors, says the SEC’s Cohen, because they “handed over millions for digital assets, and that money’s at risk.”

Dan Morehead, the founder of San Francisco-based Pantera Capital, said worries over regulation are overstated. “Markets are vastly overhyping regulatory risk,” he said. “The SEC has been very moderate.”

An Uncertain Situation

This new regulatory territory extends beyond cryptocurrency investors. The uncertainty over whether utility tokens will ultimately be treated as securities, for example, is a concern for both developers and customers of a wide range of potential blockchain solutions and models.

Regulation remains the top organizational barrier for companies exploring the technology, cited as a key concern by 39 percent of organizations surveyed by Deloitte in its forthcoming 2018 Global Blockchain Survey.

Steve Bunnell, a former general counsel at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, said real-world regulation is “not just mechanically applied rules.”