U.S. SEC Chairman: "We should be wary of the government's large-scale surveillance of virtual assets"

JH Kim

概要

Paul Atkins, chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), said we should be wary of the possibility that the federal government's large-scale financial surveillance could be strengthened during the regulation of the virtual asset industry.
He stated that if regulators treat all transactions, wallets, software, etc. as objects of surveillance, the ecosystem could be transformed into a 'financial panopticon'.
Atkins emphasized that in discussions on virtual asset regulation, not only investor protection and market order but also the possibility of privacy infringement should be considered.

On the 15th (local time), according to crypto asset (cryptocurrency) specialist media CoinDesk, Paul Atkins, chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), warned that the federal government's large-scale financial surveillance could be strengthened in the process of regulating the virtual asset industry and that caution is needed.

Atkins said at a recent 'Financial Surveillance and Privacy' roundtable held at SEC headquarters, "It is not hard to imagine a situation in which, through virtual asset technology, the government, in cooperation with various intermediaries, looks into almost all of an individual's financial life."

He argued that if regulators seek to treat every wallet like a broker, every piece of software like an exchange, every transaction as subject to reporting, and every protocol like a monitoring node, "the government will retrofit this ecosystem into a 'financial panopticon (all-around surveillance system)'."

Atkins emphasized that discussions on virtual asset regulation should consider not only investor protection and market order but also the possibility of privacy infringement.