It is notable that SEC Commissioner Crenshaw refers to "self-directed investors," indicating that she would seek to limit the ability of self-directed investors to make investments, even in publicly traded securities. She also indicates support for a FINRA proposal that would likewise limit the authority of self-directed investors to make their own investment decisions. Her position raises a question as to whether the SEC intends to go beyond its historical role as an…

Before the U.S. government tries to pressure other countries to develop a globally coordinated regulatory scheme for digital assets, it should put its own house in order. The U.S. financial regulators have no coordinated program as to how digital assets should be treated. In fact, different regulators have come out with policies that are fundamentally at odds with each other. For example, the , but the allowing a bitcoin fund to trade on a U.S. securities exchange. The , but the SEC has…

In this statement, the regulators urge banks to make customer-by-customer decisions and not to make determinations solely on the basis of group characteristics or "customer types." Essentially, the bank regulators don't want to be held responsible for banks refusing to provide services to customers who are deemed to be high-risk. 

So long as banks are slammed with huge penalties for carrying bad accounts, it makes sense for any individual bank to be extremely cautious in…

As the Commissioner points out, the SEC's rulebook is very fat and the SEC is proposing rules to make it materially fatter. There are likely few, if any, firms that are always in compliance with all of the SEC's rules, as those rules may at any time be reinterpreted by the SEC. If CCOs are to be held strictly liable for any compliance failure at a firm, we could just round them all up in advance like in that . In the absence of such a strict liability standard, it is appropriate to…