Chris Lehane: The SEC isn’t handling crypto regulation ‘strategically’

As the regulatory landscape continues to be shaky for crypto players, some regulators may be overreaching when it comes to creating frameworks for the industry, said Haun Ventures’ chief strategy officer, Chris Lehane, at TechCrunch Disrupt 2023.

“The government had a strategy,” Lehane said. But when the SEC is looking at crypto or other hot sectors like artificial intelligence, it’s using an “enforcement-only approach to basically establish the policy for the entire U.S. and crypto,” he said.

In recent months, the SEC has filed a number of lawsuits against major crypto companies, including Binance and Coinbase, and even against celebrities like Mila Kunis. But last month, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Grayscale, a digital asset management firm, in a lawsuit against the SEC on the matter of a bitcoin ETF, which could spell good news for the industry.

“The SEC has lost a number of cases — that almost never happens — which tells you a little bit how they’re over their skis,” Lehane said. “But that runs a big risk of [the government] not approaching this strategically.”