Financial Services special counsels Gary DeWaal and Cathy Yoon spoke with Law360 on the recent joint statement from the SEC and FINRA regarding concerns with broker-dealers transacting in digital assets. Gary stated, "For the time being, there is risk [in transacting digital assets]. It's probably no different than buying a foreign [financial] product right now. The SEC is all about customer protection. So it's a big leap of faith to say, we can tolerate a little bit of risk here. But until they get there, they're going to keep on struggling. And that seems to be what's going on here." Cathy noted that the SEC could use this time "to test out a regulatory sandbox like other jurisdictions, states and agencies have done or are suggesting." She stated, "If the SEC is really concerned about allowing something to go through and something blows up, and they don't want people to blame the SEC for allowing it to go through, then they should be able to go through a process where they can test it somehow in a real-life situation." ("Regulators Wait To Be Convinced Of Crypto Asset Safeguards," July 11, 2019)
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