At the consensus conference held in New York, the U.S. regulators indicated that they are still paying close attention to the development of cryptocurrencies and ICOs, but their goal is not to suppress the industry.

Tuesday on May 15th, James McDonald, executive director of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), Robert Cohen, deputy director of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s law enforcement network, and Deputy Attorney General’s Deputy Attorney General Sugett- Sujit Raman participated in a panel discussion on law enforcement activities in this area. The discussion was moderated by lawyer Lawrence Stefan Bunnell and Kiran Raj, chief strategy officer of Bittrex, a cryptocurrency exchange, also participated in the discussion.

These government representatives claimed that their speeches only represented themselves, not their respective institutions. It is worth noting that they agree that they will not prevent innovation or interfere with the underlying technology of the blockchain and the development of tokens based on emerging technologies.

In other words, they also claim that they must take action against those who attempt to commit fraud and direct theft in this area.

Both Cohen and Macdonald said that their institution is “open-ended” to the token sale, and Cohen explained:

“The US Securities Exchange has been openly talking with people and employees in the industry, understanding their ideas, exploring new developments and new technologies. The committee encourages the way to raise funds, we will not supervise the technology — we will only supervise the financial industry and the market. ”

To supervise the specific implementation of this field, McDonald pointed out:

“Our mission is to foster financially sound markets, and we understand as a regulator that requires a certain amount of [flexibility] in our approach. We’re doing it in a way that doesn’t hinder innovation and doesn’t interfere with other regulatory priorities.”

Raman also pointed out that protecting Americans is the focus of any action taken by the Ministry of Justice. He said:

“The number one priority for the Department of Justice is to keep people safe. One concern we have for the larger virtual currency space is large sums of money are flowing through the market without touching financial institutions … From a national security perspective or an anti-money laundering perspective, that’s something … we have to investigate. As with anything else, it’s a balance but it’s certainly one of our priorities, to know what’s going on.”

When asked about any concerns, Raje of Bittrex pointed to a lack of regulatory transparency in the sale of tokens was his concern, he said:

“One of the big pieces of feedback I get … is we need more certainty. One of the main things we get is we hear about fraud … we agree, we don’t want them in the industry. The problem is how do we take guidance and apply it to what you’re doing when it’s so far away from what the fraud people are doing?”

Macdonald agreed with this view, saying:

“LabCFTC is providing their expertise to make sure we end up in the best place possible. We’re careful not to be putting ourselves out there in the same way that the policy divisions would be but the policy divisions are having conversations with market participants.”

However, Cohen said that the SEC has released guidance on the sale of tokens, he said:

“The main issue is whether the token or whatever asset you have is a security, and the commission has put out guidance on that. If a firm or person is making a good-faith effort to comply with the law, and one step to that is if they’re talking to regulators, [we’ll work with them].”

For those who are trying to deceive others, Cohen’s position is:

“It’s clear when people are not making good-faith efforts to comply, and that’s when we step in.”

Marko Vidrih

@cryptomarks

image via coindesk