Wednesday, Sept 25, 2024

SEC grilling, uneven bank rules, global adoption

“Although our intellect always longs for clarity and certainty, our nature often finds uncertainty fascinating.” – Carl von Clausewitz ||

Hello everyone! I hope you’re all well! I saw this morning that there’s only 97 days left until the end of the year, which is both exciting and distressing at the same time…

No recording again today, but if anyone is looking for a good tip on how to get over a flu-y cold thing fast, I suggest apple juice diluted with water and heated with a couple of cinnamon sticks and a sprinkling of cloves. Some fresh ginger wouldn’t hurt. It works for me! 😊

IN THIS NEWSLETTER:

• The SEC in the hot seat

• Banks get uneven crypto rules

• A global adoption index

If you’re not a premium subscriber, I hope you’ll consider becoming one! It’s the price of a couple of New York coffees a month, and you get ~daily commentary on how macro moods are influencing crypto markets, and also on how crypto is impacting the macro economy.

WHAT I’M WATCHING:

The SEC in the hot seat

Yesterday’s House Financial Services Committee hearing with the five SEC commissioners was spicy, and oh-so-long (five hours!). As always, some representatives used it for rambling and grandstanding, talking to the camera and their colleagues (and on occasion, it seemed, to themselves) rather than the witnesses before them, but that’s part of the political circus.

Most question threads were material, however, and it’s notable that easily more than half focused on the digital asset industry. This segment is still a teeny tiny part of financial markets, and yet the SEC has dedicated a disproportionate amount of time in attempts to prevent its maturation. This means elected representatives also are spending a disproportionate amount of time pushing back, with little progress to show relative to the amount of attention. Even just from a resource allocation perspective, this can’t be constructive.

The session was probably one of the last high-profile Committee hearings chaired by Representative McHenry (R-NC) as he is retiring at the end of the year, and I will miss his plain-spoken charm and energy.

Especially since he tends to come out swinging. This quote is from his opening statement:

“Under Chair Gensler, the SEC has become a rogue agency. It routinely exploits its authority to the detriment of our capital markets, innovation and the American people.”