Austin Campbell, former Head of Portfolio Management at Paxos and partner at Zero Knowledge Consulting, has released a piece on the X platform discussing the list of projects prosecuted by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and some notable absentees including FTX, Celsius, Terraform Labs, Hex, and BlockFi.
Campbell criticized the SEC's approach, saying, "If you are a genuine scam or criminal activity, you are 100% safe from the SEC, and in fact, they will go out of their way to help you in an attempt to undermine your legitimate competitors."
His commentary came on the back of PayPal receiving a subpoena from the SEC regarding the stablecoin PYUSD. Taking this to a broader perspective, Campbell pointed out, "If PYUSD is a security, then Starbucks gift cards, prepaid debit cards, and airline points are also securities." He alleges that the focus on these areas diverts resources from the investigation of legitimate harm that could be caused by illicit activities and scams.
As an observer of the sector, Austin denied being against regulators and expressed respect for institutions like the Federal Reserve, the NYDFS, the JFSA, the CFTC, among others. He feels that a lack of understanding is primarily hindering their assessments and expects this to change over time.
However, Campbell displayed a certain disillusionment with the SEC, arguing against its actions involving Ripple, Coinbase, LBRY, and others. He believes this approach aggravates harm to consumers and hampers developments in crypto.
