15th February 2025 > > The SEC & the OCC.

tl;dr

The SEC’s behaviour is far more becoming than we have ever seen before. Operation Choke Point 2.0 is finally killed for good in a body blow against those who are illiberal and act illegally.

Market Snap

Market Wrap

BTC has been trading sideways for a month now between $92.5k and $107.5k. The crypto-specific good news just keeps piling up so a break in the macro-economic bad news could get interesting.

Occasional Series – Central Bankers

Curious Cryptos’ Commentary – The SEC

On the 7th February the CCC reported that the SEC had formally acknowledged spot ETF applications for LTC and SOL. This is an important development because under the reign of terror imposed by Gensler, the SEC had simply ignored such applications, which is an extraordinary way to behave. One of the biggest problems democracies suffer from is the army of unelected bureaucrats who impose their own views, political or otherwise, upon the rest of us with scant regard to their roles, responsibilities, duty, and the law. Now that the SEC is being run in line with its actual mandate rather than the one imagined by Gensler, the entire regulatory sphere is far more welcoming to the crypto revolution.

We have yet more evidence of this fundamental shift.

Yesterday, the SEC acknowledged the receipt of applications for DOGE and XRP spot ETFs.  This does not guarantee that they will be accepted, but it is the first step in that process.

Giving investors access to a wider range of crypto products to allow for a more diversified portfolio will attract yet more investment dollars into this space, which is good for our bags.

Curious Cryptos’ Commentary – The OCC

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) is a central element of the regulatory landscape for banks in the US. It played a key role in Operation Choke Point 2.0, in particular with a strongly worded warning issued in January 2023 to regulated banks that catering for crypto clients carried additional risk:

“Based on the agencies’ current understanding and experience to date, the agencies believe that issuing or holding as principal crypto-assets that are issued, stored, or transferred on an open, public, and/or decentralized network, or similar system is highly likely to be inconsistent with safe and sound banking practices.”

The mood is somewhat different now.

…

The hapless Jerome Powell, Chair of the Fed and hence King of Central Bankers (surely that’s a spelling mistake? – Ed.) has admitted in sworn testimony to Congress just three days ago that there had been a policy of de-banking crypto firms, even though he had previously denied this had been the case. Naturally he pins the entire blame on other bureaucrats, but no-one is buying that fallacy, for the Fed also put its name to that warning issued in January 2023.

To his credit, Powell’s sudden pro-crypto pivot demolishes once again the myth of central bank independence, though he probably does not see it that way.

Jonathan Gould has been nominated as the new chair of the OCC. He was previously Chief Legal Officer at blockchain development firm Bitfury. He is undoubtedly a crypto advocate.

Powell’s screeching U-turn allied with Jonathan at the helm of the OCC finally consigns the illegal and illiberal Operation Choke Point 2.0 to the dustbin, and hurrah for that. Is that Senator Elizabeth Warren caterwauling I hear in the background?