Dec. 5, 2021
My name is Marc Greton and I am a father, husband, active community member and volunteer, business owner, and investor. I have invested in digital technologies (i.e., cryptocurrencies) since Feb 2018. As an investor, I do not feel I need protection from the SEC as the information I am provided from the entities where I buy and sell assets is sufficient for me to make my investing decisions. Analyzing the trustworthiness of the entities where I transact crypto is part of any investor's due diligence, as is analyzing the risk/reward of the potential asset under consideration. Conducting research and forming independent conclusions as to the risk/reward ratio of an investment opportunity is each individual investor's own responsibility. I do not believe the SEC has the responsibility to "protect" me and I strongly encourage the SEC to take a laissez-faire approach to digital asset/cryptocurrency regulation. Taking a more aggressive regulatory approach will simply drive innovation out of the U.S, and will force everyday investors (like myself) to use less trustworthy businesses to buy/sell assets instead of companies like Coinbase/FTX/Kraken. Any investor who makes a poor investment decision and loses money, then turns to a regulator to blame the company where they did their trading for their investment loss, is not taking responsibility for their decisions, for their portfolio, and is creating systemic externalities that negatively affect all future investors and potential innovators. The SEC's goal with digital asset regulations should be a "do no harm" strategy, similar to the regulatory strategy taken to embrace the internet in the early 90s. Provide clarity around how different digital assets are to be handled and taxed (as property, commodities, equities) and then let the company's innovate and investors take risks, earn rewards, and own their losses. By over-regulating the emerging digital asset economy, the SEC would going in the exact opposite direction of its mission: it would be directly harming investors by limiting investment opportunities; it would be indirectly protecting incumbent financial organizations from more competition; in doing these two things it would be adding inefficiencies to the market and channeling capital formation into legacy institutions (banks) instead of facilitating capital formation in a new economy; all of these actions are unfair to the digital asset market and appear to be a means to protect legacy financial institutions from disruption.