Jay Clayton, Chairman of Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), says that investors should be cautious about trading Bitcoin(BTC)trade on a large scale. On Thursday, he asserted that until Bitcoin is regulated and monitored, it should not be traded on a major exchange.
The current market capitalization of the largest digital currency has reached total value of over $177 billion and continues to grow as a more mainstream business. The cryptocurrency industry is planning to introduce more exchange-traded funds that would benefit investors and retail professionals to transition easily into the crypto business, and thus boost the BTC price much higher.
Cryptocurrency’s instability has been a cause of concern for the regulators. Due to the constant fluctuation in exchange rates and prospects of monetary frauds and scams it has been difficult to monitor cryptocurrencies. Presently, Bitcoin is trading at around $10,000, which is a staggering 55+% increase over the past year, but this price is still off by about 100% from its peak of $20,000 as it had been in late 2017.
Clayton opened his speech at the Delivering Alpha conference with the claim that if investors compare and find similarities in the price movements between cryptocurrencies and the Nasdaq or the New York Stock Exchange, then they are misled. The conference took place in New York on Thursday trough a collaboration of CNBC and Institutional Investor.
Clayton further claimed that we should aim to be confident that the trading of cryptocurrency is better regulated for the sake of investors and consumers.
Bitcoin has yet never been listed on a public exchange except one time when CME group, a foreign exchange company, included Bitcoin in their futures trading. The popular digital currency otherwise does not being traded or listed in any major exchange or stock market.
The discussion about cryptocurrency and its prospects in investments was one of the topics reaching large audience at the ninth conference of Delivering Alpha. Clayton has also been trying to direct retail investors towards public markets by easing their access.
Clayton made a note that he would like to see more private companies launch initial public offerings (IPOs) as fast as possible with easy accessibility. He claims that expansion opportunities for businesses and stocks have reached enough sustainability and yet still many private companies and regular investors don’t have easy access to them.
He openly posed the question of what was to be done about and suggested the idea of a fund structure without any elaboration or a structured plan. This problem might be one of the driving forces behind the current rise of crypto.
