There has been a significant amount of capitulation (surrender) amongst even the most hardened XRP supporter because of this SEC lawsuit taking place. It’s rather sad to see such cannibalism taking place in our community. Some people will sell, some will hold, but we are all in this together. I highly recommend you support one another during these challenging times. No need to shame each other for doing what each of us thinks is best. For me, I hold!
The most absorbing part of this whole SEC vs. Ripple lawsuit are the documents coming to light (some good some bad for Ripple). Most recently, a document titled “Cryptocurrencies and the next SEC Chair” surfaced. This document is dated December 7th, so before the SEC filed against Ripple – which is interesting regarding its contents. This letter was penned under the company letterhead of the “Chin Tech Threat.” The person who wrote within that organization is named Roslyn Layton, Ph.D. I will jump into the details of the letter but first, let us look at the company and the individual who is behind it.
Here is a quick screenshot showing Chin Tech Threats mission statement:
Now let’s take a look at who Roslyn Layton Is:
Let’s jump into the bulk of this “Crprocurrencies and the next SEC Chair” letter. As you can gather from the title it involves much of the drama that is currently playing out between Ripple and the SEC, most notably the ex-Chair Jay Clayton. In the letter, Layton carefully and methodically picked apart all of the ridiculous and bureaucratic nonsense that Jay Clayton promoted during his time as Chair. Layton was ruthless in her criticism of how blatantly awful Clayton was.
This letter also shows that there has been tension and disdain building between Jay Clayton and Ripple long before the lawsuit was filed. No surprise there. As an XRP holder, it is vindication to hear extremely qualified people declaring Clayton has been performing his job poorly to foster invitation with reasonable crypto regulation.
Here are some of the bold quotes from Layton roasting Clayton in her letter:
“Because of the lack of a coherent regulatory framework for digital assets, the U.S. crypto industry faces a maze of financial and regulatory institutions with competing agendas vying to assert jurisdiction over new financial innovation. The SEC, a consequential financial regulator since 1934, asserts the power to declare any digital asset to be a security – even if fails to meet the technical definition. The unconsidered impact can be fatal for a crypto start-up, and the mere chance of such an outcome adds risk and cost to U.S. companies that are driving some to consider moving overseas. Meanwhile, the PRC is already rolling out a digital yuan to millions of users and preparing to win the crypto race as the U.S. stumbles.
Will the next SEC Chair understand the urgent need for regulatory clarity to keep the U.S. competitive in blockchain innovation, or will the regulatory confusion that defined the tenure of outgoing SEC Chair Jay Clayton continue to hand advantages to China?”
Layton when on to say:
“Policymakers should think intelligently about the function they are trying to perform, not copy-paste their bureaucracy on anything that moves.”
“The SEC has the biggest regulatory sword to wield over crypto companies, due to a legal framework that is nearly a century old and empowers the agency to determine if a digital asset is a security or not. The SEC makes such determinations on any digital asset it wants, relying entirely on the so-called “Howey test”, based on a 1946 Supreme Court ruling4 related to securities legislation from the 1930s5. These rules never imagined blockchain solutions or a new global financial infrastructure. Most critically, under these rules, the SEC doesn’t have to consider the use case of a digital asset when making a potentially fatal determination for a blockchain solution. This has piled cost and risk upon innovators which choose to operate in the United States versus the streamlined regimes in the United Kingdom, Japan, Singapore and other places.”
One of Layton’s more ambitious quotes were:
“The outdated rules allow the SEC to bulldoze one of the core innovations of the technology – the open-source utility token, an essential tool for applying blockchain solutions to a wide swath of the real economy.”
As you can see, Layton didn’t hold back in sharing her opinion of how the SEC has been awful. I highly recommend reading the document in its entirety below. Its good to see other people in influential positions holding Jay Claytons feet to the fire.
