Commissioner Crenshaw's remarks suggest that because activities involving crypto create risks (most obviously fraud), the SEC should regulate crypto. While understandable, this logic is troubling. A regulator should not be stretching the bounds of the authority granted it by statute in order to address what the regulator perceives to be a problem or to achieve a desired policy result.  

By claiming that essentially all crypto assets were securities, without attempting any serious…

There is no area of financial regulation that is so in need of reduced regulation as that governing of the production of investment research. Investment research, which is a necessity for strong capital markets, has been treated by the SEC and FINRA as an inherently suspect activity. As a result, they have imposed onerous regulations that both made it more expensive to produce and to provide less of a benefit (profit motive) for it to be produced.  

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?