In a Monday appearance on CNBC’s Squawk Box, SEC Commissioner Robert Jackson suggested that the regulatory body will eventually be considering options that could help initial coin offerings comply with existing securities laws.
According to Jackson, the SEC continues to be concerned about risk to investors, and is currently focusing its efforts on protecting them from potential fraud:
"Investors are having a hard time telling the difference between investments and fraud. Down the road, I think we will be thinking about ways to make those investments work consistent with our securities laws."
Jackson’s remarks indicated that the SEC is still focusing a great deal of attention on initial coin offerings, and even suggested that the ICO market’s unregulated chaos shows why the SEC’s work is so important:
"If you want to know what our markets would look like with no securities regulation, what it would look like if the SEC didn't do its job? The answer is the ICO market."
Despite acknowledging the SEC’s ongoing concern about ICOs, Jackson insisted that his comments did not mean that the Commission was considering a ban, or that new regulations were imminent. Instead, he said that the SEC’s main priority is to ensure investor protection.