One of the most interesting aspects of Commissioner Uyeda's talk, beyond his criticism of SEC Chair Gary Gensler's agenda, was his negative take on European regulation, which he views as overly risk adverse, and therefore depriving European investors of the potential rewards that come with more risk. Mr. Uyeda pointed out the small size of the EU equity markets as compared to the equity markets of Asia, as well as the limited number of IPOs launched in Europe as compared to the United States…

The purported reason for the no-action letter was that the SEC wanted to allow time for an "orderly and good faith transition into compliance." The fact that the relief granted was for two years, rather than six months or even a year, could be read to suggest that the SEC may be backing away from the concept of applying Rule 15c2-11 to fixed income securities. Notably, the no-action letter extends past the next presidential election.

This is a no-action letter that should not have…

What is the evidence that there is declining trust in public markets or that such declining trust has a negative effect? Increases in volatility have been, to a good extent, outside the control of market participants; e.g., high inflation, the jump in interest rates and supply chain problems. It is not intuitive that the massive fines imposed on financial firms for recordkeeping violations that were not tied to injuries to consumers are a response to any of that.

This case is interesting. It explicitly raises the question of the extent to which the information required by the SEC in a registration statement is relevant to an offering of digital assets. In short, is the problem related to a purported refusal to answer or is the problem that the registration statement does not pose the right questions?