The FRB should address custodial services in digital assets. Allowing regulated banks to provide such services to retail investors would potentially reduce a significant risk to which such investors are now subject, as the collapse of FTX demonstrates.

In effect, Commissioner Johnson calls for authority along the lines that the FRB has with respect to banks; i.e., to regulate the holding company of the bank and potentially the subsidiaries of the holding company.

The banking regulators seem to materially misunderstand and overestimate the credit risk in a retail broker-dealer business. SEA  ("Customer protection-reserves and custody of securities"), which imposes strict segregation rules as to the custody of customer assets, combined with the SEC's very conservative net capital rule, SEA  ("Net capital requirements for brokers or dealers"), dictates that retail broker-dealers have a very low risk credit profile. Banks, which can make…

Commissioner Peirce's remarks are a significant contribution to the ongoing debate on regulating digital assets. While both the SEC and CFTC wish to assert authority over digital assets, neither has developed a comprehensive regulatory scheme, although each regulator ought to be capable of doing so. Rather than put forward comprehensive regulatory plans, the agencies have largely dead-ended into arguments over definitions and jurisdiction; i.e., over which agency should have authority,…