Roll Call Quotes Ian McGinley on SEC Crypto Enforcement
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For its article “SEC’s new crypto enforcers are coming for DeFi, lawyers say,” Roll Call quoted Akin Gump white collar defense and government investigations partner Ian McGinley.
The article discusses the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) decision to increase its cryptocurrency enforcement staff, a move the periodical says could cause worries for digital asset exchanges as the SEC considers whether some cryptocurrencies are securities.
McGinley, a former Chief of the Complex Frauds and Cybercrime Unit at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, said he expects particular scrutiny on a new area of digital assets: decentralized finance platforms, or DeFi, noting that SEC Chairman Gensler has already stated that the agency is examining them.
Said McGinley, “If in fact the decentralized platform is controlled by a small group, I think you are likely to see some action,” noting, however, that “If an exchange is purely decentralized, then it is very hard for the SEC to make the case that the exchange is selling securities.”
He expects that the SEC will also pursue cases against non-fungible tokens, or NFTs: “It's highly likely we will see some SEC enforcement in NFTs, especially since we’ve seen some state regulators recently take action against some NFT projects for selling unregistered securities.”