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Comment by tw04 | Hacker News Reader

>Bakkt plans to offer a full package combining a major CFTC-regulated exchange with CFTC-regulated clearing and custody, pending the approval from the commission and other regulators.

I think that they're about the 4th "major player" to announce they're going to introduce a regulated exchange. And every other time it's been "pending regulator approval". And every other time the regulators told them to pound sand. Besides the fact they run the NYSE, what's changed? The US has absolutely no incentive to hand over controls of their monetary policy, and I see no reason why they'd be anymore eager to approve this.

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> The US has absolutely no incentive to hand over controls of their monetary policy

The regulators who approve these proposals have nothing to do with monetary policy. Their concern is with the breathtaking volume of scams in the space.

Given that one of the fundamental objectives of the cryptocurrency movement is to devolve the power of monetary policy, issuance and supply leverage from the state to various 'decentralized' (weasel word of this century) groups, and thereby deprive the state of its power of taxation, I would think it in the interest of these regulators to pass the word along to those who do control monetary policy.

> one of the fundamental objectives of the cryptocurrency movement is to devolve the power of monetary policy

Nobody at FINRA or the SEC cares about the power of monetary policy. The former being an industry group, it is actually somewhat in favor of letting banks sell Bitcoin (and related derivatives) to their clients. The people at the Federal Reserve, who actually control monetary policy, are mostly ignoring all this.

Are FINRA truly 'regulators' (with access to state enforcement apparatus) or just a professional standards-setting body of license gatekeepers?

> Are FINRA truly 'regulators' (with access to state enforcement apparatus)

Pretty much. FINRA writes rules that everyone in the industry has to follow. When you work in securities, you agree to hand FINRA arbitration power over a lot of things. They can fine you and bar you from the industry. They can't press criminal charges, but neither can the SEC.

I think the only thing that changed is in fact that they are NYSE.

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