Commissioner Crenshaw's bleak and dismissive statement as to the new Staff guidance appears as to be an attempt to defend the SEC's complete failure to develop any meaningful legal analysis of when or why activities involving cryptocurrencies are subject to the securities laws.  

Ms. Crenshaw trivializes the new guidance by pointing out that its application to mining activities is subject to a "limitation: one actually would have to conduct a Howey [test]…

Going to 24-hour trading raises a raft of regulatory issues and operational questions. e.g. what does T plus 1 settlement require in a round-the-clock trading environment? At what hour of the calendar day is there no longer an obligation to settle the trade on the next day?

Governor Bowman has been a consistent critic of stodgy regulation, over-regulation and misplaced regulatory priorities. Philosophically, or perhaps temperamentally, she seems almost the opposite of the former Vice Chair for Supervision, whose public statements were almost entirely focused on every type of risk. (See, e.g. .)

For those who are open to a re-examination of the status quo, there could not be a better choice for Vice Chair of Supervision than Ms. Bowman.  

Acting Chair Uyeda is spot-on in focusing on the rulemaking process. Many of the substantive problems in the rulemaking regime of the former Administration (including its numerous defeats in the courts for either exceeding it legislative authority or failing to comply with the Administrative Procedure Act) arose because it rushed through rules and ignored public comments. (Here's one example: .)