Former SEC commissioner Troy Paredes was not the first to criticize the U.S. financial regulator’s lack of clarity on digital assets.
Troy Paredes, who served as a commissioner at the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) from 2008 to 2013, suggested that the regulator might be overreaching on what digital assets it considered securities.
Speaking at the TokenizeThis 2024 conference in Miami on May 9, Paredes said SEC Chair Gary Gensler seemed to suggest that the commission had clarity on his views of what constituted a security under the Howey test. However, he said there was still a “jurisdictional question” the SEC needed to address on digital assets.
“I mean, if it’s not a security, then it’s outside the scope of the federal securities laws in the SEC’s jurisdiction,” said Paredes. “The commission, I believe, has taken a very expansive view as to what constitutes a security under the Howey test.”