US: SEC Official Says ICO Regulation Should Be 'Balanced', Congressman Suggests Ban

In a hearing at the US House of Representatives on Thursday, April 26, a regulator from the US Securities and Exchange Commission and House Financial Services Committee members hotly disagreed over whether a "Balanced approach" could be taken in regulating Initial Coin Offerings.

Committee member Bill Huizenga asked Hinman if ICOs could be a solution to this decline, and whether all ICOs must be regulated.

In response, Hinman said that "In theory, there is a time when a coin may achieve a decentralized utility in the marketplace, or there may be coins where that lack of a central actor may make it difficult to regulate."

Hinman followed previous comments from SEC chairman Jay Clayton that most ICOs should be considered securities.

According to Hinman, the SEC would be consulting with entities releasing tokens to verify that the offerings were either regulated or not qualified as securities.

"It takes money out of the real economy, it takes people willing to invest and risk, and says 'don't use that ability to risk, don't use those animal spirits to help create a job for a person who needs one, let alone build a factory for thousands, sit there and trade back and forth in the ICO.'".

Sherman said of the decentralized nature of ICOs:."Charlatans and scammers have always favored decentralized new enterprises."

"The typical attitude too that I get from so many elected officials is that have no idea what they are talking about everyone who is participating in is either bad or dishonest, and an official must rush in and help people."

The SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission held a cryptocurrency hearing in February of this year.

They reached the conclusion that ICOs need the most amount of oversight, digital ledger technologies like Blockchain the least, with virtual currencies like Bitcoin falling somewhere in between.