2021 was the year of increased regulatory clarity in the crypto market.

The ICO craze of 2017 ushered in an era of increasing government scrutiny.

And legal questions about the nature of cryptocurrencies continue to puzzle regulators.

The Ripple case illustrates this trend well. In late 2020, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a lawsuit against Ripple Labs, alleging that the company offered approximately $1.3 billion in unregistered securities when it sold much of its XRP cryptocurrency to the public.

This calls into question certain parts of the crypto market. And it is still unclear what is considered a "security" and a "commodity" in the digital world.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) also initiated a civil enforcement action against the cryptocurrency exchange platform, BitMEX.

The complaint alleges that BitMEX operates an unregistered trading platform and flouts CFTC regulations, such as implementing anti-money laundering procedures.

Many expected the announcement of the introduction of the first cryptocurrency ETF in the financial markets arena between 2021 and 2022. However, statements from former SEC officials and crypto experts dash hopes for regulatory changes in the near term.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), which was previously led by the former general counsel of Coinbase, took some innovative steps over the past year.

Those steps include allowing financial institutions to serve as custodians of their customers' crypto assets.

The President's Task Force on Financial Markets also issued a statement on stable coins and further investigated the concept.

However, the overall trend is clear: the window of opportunity is closing for small, unregistered players and, in the coming years, even DeFi platforms will have to comply with regulations. The only solution to this is to adapt or leave the market to avoid potential legal problems.

#crypto2023

- This article about Binance was written by Luca Escobar [@PepeBNB] for APfinanciero. We hope you enjoyed reading it and that you learned something new.