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Comment by sxates | Hacker News Reader

I'm not saying that there's nothing worth investigating in the Crypto space, but I wish the SEC spent half the time it spends chasing down shady ICOs looking into fraud at Goldman Sachs and other Wall St. banks. You know, the institutions that whose scale dwarfs crypto and actually has enormous economic repercussions?

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They do go after Wall St. banks - what makes you think SEC doesn't?

Just looking at the last 6 months of press releases, I can't find a big bank anywhere.

https://www.sec.gov/news/pressreleases

Then there was that time back in 2008 when all these banks crashed our economy and a single guy was prosecuted and went to jail. 1 guy.

But in the last month I can remember at least 3 press releases from the SEC about crypto concerns and investigations.

Banks likely comply with regulations 99.9% of the time (doesn't mean the regulations work well enough though). They have teams of lawyers and have worked with the SEC for years.

Contrast that with crypto where fraud is commonplace, and people constantly flaunt regulations, claim they aren't securities or banks so regulations don't apply, etc. Crypto is a new ballgame and the SEC is trying to figure out how to regulate it appropriately so of course there's a lot of activity there.

There are no indications that the SEC spends remotely near half the time they spend investing big banks/the traditional financial sector on crypto currencies. I’d be shocked if even 10% of sec resources were devoted to cryptocurrencies.

The SEC has a dedicated "Cyber" unit which targets Cryptocurrencies

https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2017-176

I just watched Netflix's Dirty Money episode on HSBC. If you want to throw up in your mouth a little check it out and see how the Obama admin bent over backward to make sure they got a slap on the wrist for knowingly and purposefully laundering terror and drug cartel money for about a decade. Too big to jail is apparently very real.

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