Law enforcement has no obligation to explain the laws to you.
Basically, the rules for whether a retirement plan meets the qualifications for favorable tax treatment are highly complex, so a plan sponsor can ask the IRS to determine if the structure of the plan fits the rules by asking for a "Favorable Determination Letter". This seems to me highly analogous to what crypto exchanges wanted from the SEC.
Of course, it seems best that a regulating body is clear about their regulations. It seems weird that’s even in contention, to be honest. But I do wonder about an obligation to do so.
One aspect of common-law, is that it is law that is equally applied to all. The logic is, if Bob did thing $x, and Sally did thing $x, both should expect a similar outcome.
This is because a person has a right to know how specific acts are interpreted by courts, for whatever legislation is being tried against. A person has a literal right in common-law, pre-dating most modern democracies, to know how a thing they do will be interpreted.
And this is why most descendants of common-law legal systems, such as the US, put such strong strictures on prior judgements. It's vital. It's missed by many, but this is how people know how the law will be interpreted.
And my point in all of this is, yes, 100%, under common-law, someone has to give you an idea of how your actions will be interpreted. It's core to common-law, and US law, is predicated upon common-law, criminal or civil.
"Ignorance of the law is no excuse", however, that does not remove the right to be informed of the law when asked!
(Let's not dive into the few places that have napoleonic civil code in the US, and stick to federal law at least)
The link at the top of this page is 90 pages of the SEC telling Kraken what rules and regulations they have broken. It is certainly possible the court will disagree with the SEC, but I wouldnt bet on it.
I would (not a lot, but I would). They lost on the Grayscale trust, they lost on XRP being a security (extremely relevant here), they're seemingly settling with Binance... the court has been disagreeing with the SEC a whole lot on the matter of blockchain regulation lately.
Yes, that would be what the SEC is doing right now by initiating enforcement actions.
IMO it's not even unclear, crypto companies just want to pretend it is because their pocketbook depends on it, but I'm not a lawyer.