Regulators in the US and Canada Crack Down on Crypto Schemes

As the battle between the cryptocurrency regulation and the ultimate quest for liberation rages on, forty regulators in the United States and Canada have teamed up in an effort to regulated cryptocurrency investment schemes. The collaboration between two countries’ regulators has resulted in the largest crackdown in cryptocurrency scams of this scale in history. So far, there are 70 ongoing investigations with 35 more that have either been completed or are still pending.

CNBC reports that the collaborative effort, that is, the North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA), has officials from 40 or more different state regulators working together to provide the much-needed coordinated responses to any cryptocurrency-based investment schemes such as Initial Coin Offerings (ICO’s).

The North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA), as it turns out, is the oldest international organization whose primary goal is investor protection. It also boasts of a vast number of members that include securities administrators from states, provinces, as well as the territories in the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Canada, and Mexico. The organization’s efforts have turned out to be very helpful in ensuring that the crypto industry flourishes safely – its approach involves policing investment opportunities in the United States and Canada such as in ICOs to ensure that they are legitimate and are being carried safely and within the legal boundaries.

“The crackdown comes amid growing attention in the U.S. to cryptocurrency scams, including by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The SEC has brought several fraud cases against operators of initial coin offerings and last week launched a website to help investors recognize scams. William Francis Galvin, the state’s secretary of the commonwealth, said NASAA’s task force found roughly 30,000 crypto-related domain name registrations, many of which appeared in late 2017 as the price of bitcoin neared $20,000,” an excerpt from the CNBC report reads.

Praise from High Places

The NASAA crackdown operation that has since been dubbed “Operation Crypto Sweep” has been lauded by a number of industry bigwigs including Jay Clayton, the chairman of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. In a statement that was released on Monday, May 22, Clayton said that the state and provincial regulators play a vital role in the protection of Main Street investors.

“The enforcement actions being announced by NASAA should be a strong warning to would-be fraudsters in this space that many sets of eyes are watching, and that regulators are coordinating on an international level to take strong actions to deter and stop fraud,” Clayton added.

In addition to this, Clayton pointed out the fact that NASAA’s efforts would drive out bad actors and scammers early on thus ensuring that governments adopt stances that are not going to choke off the crypto industry.