The United States now has a chance for the revival of digital assets after several court rulings curbed the SEC. This was stated by Jeremy McLaughlin, a partner at K&L Gates, at the Intersekt23 conference, according to Cointelegraph.
“Now that the courts are gradually pressing the Commission, I think there is some hope that the crypto industry in the United States will rebound,” he stressed.
According to McLaughlin, earlier regulation of cryptocurrencies occurred at the state level and was “quite clear”. However, later federal agencies—the CFTC and the SEC—intervened, after which a large part of the market began to shut down.
The lawyer noted that many platforms began delisting tokens, seeing how aggressive the regulatory climate in the United States had become.
On August 29, asset manager Grayscale won the case against the SEC regarding the conversion of its flagship GBTC trust into a Bitcoin ETF. The first cryptocurrency reacted with a rise of nearly 6% in an hour.
The ruling followed a series of inquiries to the Commission by major financial institutions such as BlackRock and Fidelity for the registration of spot-price-based Bitcoin ETFs. Futures-based Bitcoin ETFs have been traded in the United States since 2021.
After Grayscale’s victory, Bloomberg analysts James Seyffart and Eric Balchunasassessed the probability of launching a spot Bitcoin ETF by the end of 2023 at 75%.
Earlier the SEC also partially lost hearings against Ripple Labs. In July 2023, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York concluded that programmatic sales and other distributions of the XRP token do not constitute offers or sales of investment contracts, as the agency had claimed. After that the regulator filed an appeal.
McLaughlin added that being a lawyer in this field is quite challenging. It’s especially frustrating when you can’t give clients clear answers, he said.
Earlier in Congress, lawmakers proposed oust Gary Gensler as head of the SEC following the court ruling on the conversion of the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust into an ETF.