The Dedicated Crypto Office of the SEC

On Friday, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) made public its intention to expand its files review operations by establishing two additional offices. The regulatory body described the first as a "Office of Crypto Assets" and the second as a "Office of Industrial Applications and Services." It added that it anticipates both offices will be established by the end of this fall.

The SEC noted that these offices are grouped by industry expertise and will be under the agency's Division of Multinational company Finance's Confidentiality Review Program. The two new offices will join the agency's seven existing offices that "provide focused review of issuer filings," according to the information provided by the SEC (DRP).

According to the clarification provided by the securities regulator, "The Office of Crypto Assets will continue the work already undertaken across the DRP to assess filings concerning crypto assets." The following is an explanation of this statement:

The DRP will be able to better focus its resources and experience to handle the unique and growing filing evaluation concerns linked to crypto assets if it assigns businesses and files to a single office. This will make it possible for the DRP to assign organizations and filings to a single office.

Renee Jones, director of the SEC's Division of Corporation Finance, provided an explanation for why the regulator "saw a need to provide greater and more specialized support in the DRP's Office of Finance." She cited the recent expansion of the cryptocurrency market in her statement. She expressed her opinion as follows:

The opening of these additional offices will make it possible for the DRP to strengthen its focus in the areas of crypto assets, financial institutions, life sciences, and industrial applications and services, which will in turn make it easier for us to fulfill our goal.

SEC Chairman Gary Gensler stated on Thursday that he believes the great majority of the nearly 10,000 tokens now available on the cryptocurrency market to be securities. "I've instructed the SEC staff to work directly with companies to have their tokens registered and monitored, where necessary, as securities," he added, "The offers and sales of these thousands of crypto security tokens are covered by the securities laws."