SEC Chair Gensler has several times urged operators of crypto exchanges to come in and meet with the SEC. But he offers them no reason to do so. If Chair Gensler really wants these exchanges to meet with the SEC, he needs to offer them some inducement to do so. One good way to start would be for Chair Gensler to engage with Commissioner Peirce on better defining those crypto assets that should not be regulated as securities.

(or something like that).

The requirement to report information in such significant detail as to securities lending will make for a huge change in the market.

The proposing release asserts that the transparency requirements will serve to drive down the costs of short selling. It is also reasonable to ask whether the requirements of the rule will drive more smaller lenders and market participants away from the activity as the requirements impose another significant technology cost.

One aspect of the rule…

Frequently, financial regulators describe their rule amendments as "modernizing" or "reforming" existing rules without regard to the actual substance of the rule amendment. Here, there is a truly modernizing rule amendment.

While for broker-dealers the rule amendments are liberalizing in doing away with the third-party access requirement and providing an alternative to WORM, the requirements of the proposal would be new to nonbank SBSDs, which were not subject to either of those…