As voting takes place in the US midterm elections, 1inch deputy general counsel Maylea Ma expects federal agencies, rather than Congress, to lead the next phase of cryptocurrency regulation. The election could affect the stalled CLARITY Act, but Ma said significant progress over the coming years is more likely to come from the Securities and Exchange Commission, Commodity Futures Trading Commission and Treasury Department.
Ma said those agencies are engaging more with crypto projects, but noted that this does not offer the stability the industry had sought through legislation. She said the long-term aim remains a law that cannot be reversed whenever the government changes.
The uncertainty also affects institutional investors, according to Michael Ho, co-founder of D3, the team behind Doma Protocol. He said US crypto policy continues to rely on agency guidance that a future administration could reverse while the market structure bill remains stalled, leaving serious capital on hold. Ho argued that rules established in law would help attract institutional investment to tokenized real-world assets.
Recent agency actions include an SEC proposal in August outlining a framework for crypto fundraising, with exemptions for some token offerings and a safe harbor from treatment as investment contracts. In September, the commission updated staff guidance on token buybacks, crypto networks and staking receipt tokens.
The CFTC submitted a cryptocurrency market regulatory plan for White House review on Sept. 17, two days after the Senate failed to advance the CLARITY Act.
Sources: Cointelegraph.