The chairman of the U.S. SEC once again called for the establishment of a crypto regulatory system at the federal level

The head of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has renewed calls for regulation of cryptocurrency trading.

During Piper Sandler’s Global Exchanges & FinTech virtual conference, SEC Chairman Gary Gensler said that a federal regulatory regime should be established for crypto trading to enhance investor protection:

“Crypto assets are mainly traded on exchanges, and the public should have an investor protection system. We need a federal system to register and regulate them.”

Gensler, who has taught courses on blockchain and other financial technologies at MIT, said regulators need authority to oversee cryptocurrency exchanges, similar to stock and futures markets. He said many cryptocurrencies trade like assets that should fall under the purview of the SEC.

Earlier in May, the U.S. SEC urged Congress to bring regulatory clarity to cryptocurrency trading platforms to prevent fraud and market manipulation.

In a recent CNBC interview, Gensler said crypto assets should have the same protections as stocks and commodities: “This is something I’m very confident in. Investors don’t have the same protections that they have in the stock market or the commodity futures market… Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies don’t have those protections, they’re a speculative asset class.”

In fact, the U.S. federal government has been conducting collaborative discussions on cryptocurrency regulation. This month, senior officials from the three major federal banking regulators: the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) led by Michael Hsu, the Federal Reserve, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation held their first cryptocurrency "sprint" regulatory group meeting. The Internal Revenue Service also added a crypto-related budget to its 2022 budget report.

Although no formal regulatory documents have been issued yet, it can be seen how much importance the United States attaches to cryptocurrencies.

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have been booming since late last year. Bitcoin topped $60,000 in April, only to collapse a month later, with Bitcoin falling below $30,000. Market participants attributed part of the blame to China's strong censorship. Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, and Qinghai have successively introduced policies to crack down on crypto mining, and the keywords of the three major exchanges have been blocked on Sina Weibo, but the crypto market is still growing despite the double pressure of US and Chinese regulation.

The small Central American country of El Salvador has announced the adoption of Bitcoin as its legal currency, and its president plans to grant permanent residency to providers of three Bitcoins.

More and more small countries are embracing Bitcoin, and this will be a huge boost to the market.

Data from the Bitpush terminal showed that Bitcoin had rebounded from a low of $30,000 the previous day to around $36,000, with a daily increase of nearly 10%.