The SEC Grilled Over Unfair Crypto & NFT Regulation

The SEC Grilled Over Unfair Crypto & NFT Regulation – Are NFTs Really Securities?

Updated: 25 September 2024

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The United States House Committee on Finance Services has grilled the United States Securities and Exchange Commission over unfair crypto and NFT market regulation for the past three years. The SEC’s intense scrutiny appears just a few weeks after this commission unfairly issued a wells notice to the OpenSea, claiming NFTs on its platform were unregistered securities. In this article, we shall assess what has transpired during this heated crypto debate.

House Committee on Finance Services Grills The SEC

On September 24, 2024, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, spearheaded by Hon. Gary Gensler, the chairman of the commission; Hester Pierce, the head of the commission, and Caroline Crenshaw, a member of the commission, appeared before the House Committee on Financial Services to answers tough questions from lawmakers related to their recent stance on NFTs.

It’s a simple question: Does the SEC differentiate between crypto tokens and tokenized securities?

Gensler to @PatrickMcHenry: may I interest you in some regulatory smokescreen?

Hearing livestream: https://t.co/SaGH3XVHVY pic.twitter.com/xJMcB2lRp4

— Crypto Council for Innovation (@crypto_council) September 24, 2024

During this special sitting, Mr. McHenry, the House Committee on Financial Services Chairman, asked Gensler whether he understood the difference between tokenized securities and crypto tokens such as non-fungible tokens. In his defense, he tried to explain but ended up losing the whole point, with the HCFS chairman blaming him for the lack of clarity on regulation.

In an interjection, Tom Emmer, the majority whip of the United States House of Representatives, slammed the crypto regulatory commission chairman Gary Gensler over unfair crypto and NFT regulation. “Your inconsistencies on this issue of regulation have sent this country back. We could not have had a more historically destructive or lawless Chairman of the SEC,” Tom Emmer maintained.

JUST IN: 🇺🇸 US Congressman Tom Emmer grills Gary Gensler over crypto regulation:

"Your inconsistencies on this issue have sent this country back. We could not have had a more historically destructive or lawless Chairman of the SEC." 👀 pic.twitter.com/eHyxzeuLdm

— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) September 24, 2024

Hester Pierce- We Have Failed As A Commission

In her defense, Hon. Herter Pierce, the Head of the US Securities and Exchange Commission and renowned in the crypto market as “crypto mom,” has admitted that they have failed in their duty as regulators by failing to clarify the difference between crypto tokens (NFTs) and tokenized securities. Pierce told the house that crypto tokens (NFTs) are not securities, lamenting that they would have clarified this long ago.

SEC COMMISSIONER HESTER PEIRCE ELOQUENTLY EXPLAINS HOW THE SEC HAS DELIBERATELY TARGETED CRYPTO pic.twitter.com/GrQgXHfCTb

— Documenting Ripple 📚📜 (@RippleArchive) September 24, 2024

The recent vital regulatory debate appears a few weeks after the SEC fined the Flyfish NFT project $750,000 for selling unregistered securities and directed Flyfish to delete all its NFTs with immediate effect. Other NFT projects that have also passed over the SEC chop board include the Stone Cats, which was fined $1 million for selling unregistered securities. Last month, the SEC issued a well notice to the OpenSea NFT marketplace over the same allegations.