The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has not imposed any regulations on bitcoin (EXANTE: Bitcoin) as it classified the cryptocurrency not as a security, but rather as a store of value, Jay Clayton, SEC's Chairman, told CNBC in an interview.
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Clayton says the commission only regulates cases like with the ICO craze, when people use digital assets as securities to raise a capital for a venture.
"We determined that bitcoin was not a security, it was much more a payment mechanism and stored value," Clayton said.
SEC's head highlights the commission is seeing that current payment mechanisms — domestically or internationally — have inefficiencies that are driving the rise of bitcoin.
"We are going to see more regulations around the payment space," Clayton concluded.
iHodl previously reported Clayton will leave the commission, which is six months earlier before his term is officially up. He will leave the SEC as one of its longest serving Chairs.
During Chairman Clayton’s tenure the SEC rejected multiple applications for a bitcoin-focused exchange traded fund (ETF).
In 2018, Clayton stressed that any initial coin offering (ICO) distributing tokens among US citizens should strictly follow the SEC rules. The official also emphasized back then that bitcoin (EXANTE: Bitcoin), ether (ETH) and similar cryptocurrencies are no longer classified as securities.
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