Ashley Ebersole, who used to work at the agency, said in “All About Bitcoin” that Gary Gensler says digital asset companies would report in a different way than publicly traded companies do.
U.S. Gary Gensler, the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission, wants cryptocurrency issuers to disclose information. However, he knows that this could be done differently than how publicly traded companies do it now, a former SEC lawyer named Ashley Ebersole reports in “All About Bitcoin.””
Ebersole’s comments were in response to an interview Gensler did earlier on Thursday with Nikhilesh De, who is in charge of global policy and regulation for a crypto news platform.
Gensler “recognized that disclosure in the crypto as a context may not look the same… you’re not going to get a 10-K or 10-Q every period from an issuer,” Ebersole said, referring to the annual and quarterly financial reports that publicly traded companies must file with the SEC.
“The technology makes it unnecessary. In many cases, a lot of this is very clear. So it’s kind of case by case, but he knows there may be a difference here, and he’s open to that “Ebersole said.
Ebersole, who is now the chief legal officer at software company 0x Labs, says that the SEC’s approach makes it hard for the agency to talk to cryptocurrency issuers.
“The SEC hasn’t really shown that it wants to just talk about things that might not lead to enforcement action,” he said. “Projects are done with great care.”
Ebersole said that “something like Commissioner Peirce’s Safe Harbor proposal” is what should be done to solve this problem.
Hester Peirce, an SEC commissioner, came up with a plan that would give developers a three-year grace period and require updates every six months as well as an exit report.
“Something that would let projects come in and talk openly without worrying that the next letter or communication they get from the SEC will be a subpoena” is probably what Ebersole meant when he said that something would be needed.
