Commissioner Crenshaw asserts that the idea of a total exemption from the securities laws for digital assets that are nothing more than equity or debt interests makes no sense. This is unquestionably true. There is no magic to the representation of an equity or debt interest in digital asset form, rather than in electronic or paper form, that should provide an automatic exemption from the securities laws.

However, the fact that some digital assets are securities does not mean that all…

Commissioner Lee states: "When we relax or repeal certain of these laws or regulations, [we . . . ] alter incentives and magnify the force and impact of the remaining rules on the books." In other words, expanding exemptions from registration makes it less desirable for an issuer to bear the costs of registering itself or its securities. Ms. Lee views registration as providing a material public benefit, her response to the problem is to restrict exemptions and thereby to force issuers to…

The proposed rule change, combined with FINRA's statement that it expects to import further elements of Regulation NMS into the requirements applicable to the trading of OTC securities, and the to ("Initiation or resumption of quotations without specific information"), indicate that firms involved in the trading of OTC securities should be prepared to dedicate significantly more technology and compliance resources to the business. See also .

Reg. SHO has become so complicated that the policy of the regulation has become almost divorced from and subordinate to the technical requirements of the regulation. If one begins with the policy of the Regulation, that broker-dealers not fail on their delivery obligations, why should it matter that a U.S. firm aggregates the positions and trades of its foreign affiliates, rather than treating each of them separately, so long as, at the end of the day, the firm is able to make deliveries on…