From the above article:
On Thursday, Securities and Exchange Commission chair Paul Atkins delivered an address signalling a new era for the top regulator. After the SEC spent years combating the blockchain industry through enforcement actions, the newly appointed Atkins announced an initiative dubbed “Project Crypto” that will turn the U.S. into the “crypto capital of the world.”
Geez, everyone has a project going on now.
I do need to point out the significance here. Former SEC chairman Gary Gensler was a noted fierce critic of the crypto industry. So, he has been replaced by Paul Atkins, a noted supporter of both the industry and crucially Trump’s vision for it.
Suffice to say, such announcements always see a torrent of money flow in.
Some of that money was to support Trump’s re-election campaign, but I’m sure that’s all just a happy coincidence.
In his Thursday address, Atkins laid out a series of priorities for SEC staff, including drafting “clear and simple rules of the road” for different crypto behaviour, including custody and trading, as well as allowing intermediaries like exchanges to become “super-apps” that offer a broad range of services.
You can almost feel the FOMO boiling up from the crowd now. Seems like everyone wants in on this now. You can’t afford to miss out.
And so, dear reader, I ask you in simple terms. As this is where the rubber is supposed to really hit the road, my question to you is this.
Is there any substance to the hype?
What do I mean? Well, I’ve been thinking about this since AI really burst onto the scene last year, making many early investors in some of the most hyped companies very wealthy indeed.
Only to see a lot of that wealth disappear again. Why? Because the hype was quickly replaced with reality. Not only were almost all these AI companies’ years away from actually turning a profit.
But they would have to raise money from markets and invest in capital intensive rollouts of data centers. And crucially, find or secure the power to run them.