US Regulators Say They Want to Avoid 'Hindering' Blockchain Innovation

U.S. regulators are still looking into cryptocurrencies and initial coin offerings, but don't aim to suppress the industry, according to comments made during a panel at CoinDesk's Consensus 2018 conference in New York.

Commodity Futures Trading Commission enforcement director James McDonald, Securities and Exchange Commission Enforcement Division Cyber Unit chief Robert Cohen and associate deputy attorney general Sujit Raman participated in a panel discussion on enforcement activities in the space Tuesday.

The government representatives, who disclaimed that they only spoke for themselves and not their respective agencies, notably all agreed that they did not want to hinder innovation or interfere unduly with blockchain or the tokens built on the nascent technology.

"The SEC has been open about meeting with people from the industry, to come in and meet with the staff, to talk about the ideas you have, the new developments, and have a dialogue about the new technology. The commission encourages ways to raise capital, we don't regulate the technology - we regulate the financial industry and the markets."

"Our mission is to foster financially sound markets, and we understand as a regulator that requires a certain amount of in our approach. We're doing it in a way that doesn't hinder innovation and doesn't interfere with other regulatory priorities."

"One of the big pieces of feedback I get ... is we need more certainty. One of the main things we get is we hear about fraud ... we agree, we don't want them in the industry. The problem is how do we take guidance and apply it to what you're doing when it's so far away from what the fraud people are doing?".

"LabCFTC is providing their expertise to make sure we end up in the best place possible. We're careful not to be putting ourselves out there in the same way that the policy divisions would be but the policy divisions are having conversations with market participants."

"It's clear when people are not making good-faith efforts to comply, and that's when we step in."

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