Time for Crypto Industry to Push Back against Regulatory Overreach
Its great to see the CEO of Kraken telling the New York Attorney General where to go!! Lets see more of this!
New York is on a fast track to financial irrelevance as its BitLicense regulatory over-reach has made it a minnow in the new world of finance.
As a lawyer who has successfully fought regulators, my advice to all legitimate crypto businesses is to lawyer up and fight them tooth and nail. Bring legal challenges to everything they do.
- Bring injunctions challenging their attempts at extra-territorial jurisdiction in Court. If you have no customers or presence in their jurisdiction they have no legal power over you.
- Bring challenges to multiple regulators trying to regulate - The SEC and CFTC can't both have jurisdiction, maybe neither do.
- Bring a 1st Amendment Constitutional challenge against the entire attempt to regulate. A blockchain is just like a serialised book and crypto transactions are just new chapters. They are purely exercises of free speech which cannot be legally restricted or regulated by the US government.
There are many good substantive legal arguments to make and many technical and procedural legal angles to fight.
Regulators are used to going after scams which generally cut and run as soon as the regulator fires the first shot. Regulators have limited ammunition (budget and resources) to engage in legal trench warfare with legitimate businesses.
Legitimate Crypto projects have huge financial backing from ICOs and the rise in crypto markets.
Find lawyers who know how to fight regulators and will accept crypto as payment and unleash them on the regulators!
They will not be able to cope with dozens of trench warfare legal actions and will have to back off.
Further development of my free speech argument here: https://steemit.com/regulation/@apshamilton/a-quick-legal-analysis-of-nature-of-cryptocurrency
Great perspective. Without a doubt, regulatory overkill would be a major problem. However, there needs to be some sort of oversight (hopefully from a single body). You used one word that shows why it’s important—“legitimate.” There are more than a few illegitimate actors out there. They’re ruining it for everyone else.
Yes, I totally agree. Some consistent light tough regulation is appropriate, as Australia is doing.
I think self regulation is the best way to expose the frauds.
What shouldn't be happening is regulators treating everyone as guilty until proven innocent. Frauds will be caught and punished at the end of the day, but legitimate businesses shouldn't be obstructed, because of some bad actors.