Wall Street Meets D.C.: Is Crypto About to Get an Expensive Makeover?

If the SEC were any more focused on crypto, one might suspect it’s vying for a cameo in the next season of “Billions.” Wall Street bigwigs and DeFi dreamers alike are being summoned to Washington, no doubt to reinvent the wheel—and if possible, steal it too—at a high-stakes roundtable on tokenization. Fresh air, meet old money. 🤑

SEC Roundtable to Ponder Tokenization, or: How I Learned to Love the Blockchain

Our beloved U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, that most devout defender of the status quo, has whispered (or rather, announced loudly, for there is little else to do in May) that it will host a rousing roundtable christened: “Tokenization — Moving Assets Onchain: Where TradFi and DeFi Meet.” Picture it: May 12, D.C., suits and visionaries blended into a glorious soufflé of jargon and possibility.

Presiding over this festivity is Commissioner Hester M. Peirce, the SEC’s very own envoy to crypto, who offered the following nugget:

If tokenization is the future, darling, then reality is the after-party. The markets will never be the same, at least until someone manages to lose the private keys.

Unroll the red carpet: the event shall stretch from 1 p.m. to 5:30 p.m., with access granted to the masses in-person or virtually. No secret handshakes required for the livestream, but insider trading is probably still frowned upon. The soliloquy will begin with Richard B. Gabbert, the Crypto Task Force’s chief of staff (and, I presume, an aficionado of late-night regulatory drama), before a keynote from Chairman Paul S. Atkins. Remarks from Commissioners Caroline A. Crenshaw, Mark T. Uyeda, and the aforementioned Peirce will follow, ensuring nobody leaves with their dignity—or lunch—intact.

The initial spectacle, “Evolution of Finance: Capital Markets 2.0,” will be moderated by Jeff Dinwoodie, whose name screams Wall Street protagonist. Onstage: luminaries from Fidelity, Nasdaq, Invesco, Franklin Templeton, Blackrock, Apollo Management, and DTCC. Yes, the guest list reads like a hedge fund manager’s vision board. After a brief intermission for existential dread, panel two, titled “The Future of Tokenization,” will kick off at 4 p.m., led by Tiffany Smith of WilmerHale, with a rogue’s gallery of experts: Hilary Allen, Gene Hoffman, Johann Kerbrat, Sidney Powell, Angela Walch, and others whose LinkedIn profiles are no doubt immaculate. Topics will include the perennial mysteries of use cases, the long road to regulatory harmony, and—one hopes—a discussion on why nobody can ever, truly, escape paperwork.

For those who simply cannot get enough regulatory theater, a separate plot twist awaits: the SEC has rescheduled its DeFi roundtable. What was to be a June 6 gala will now take place on June 9. Attendees have been notified—a rare win for the blockchain, which generally notifies no one of anything, ever.

This burst of bureaucratic activity comes courtesy of the SEC’s new Crypto Task Force, which leaped onto the scene in March, presumably because someone lost a bet. Their policy roundtables have explored the joys of defining crypto as a security, the existential threats lurking in crypto trading, and the deliciously unsolvable conundrum of crypto custody. In short: if regulatory whiplash was an Olympic sport, the SEC would take gold, silver, and whatever other tokens they could mint.

Read More

• Clash Royale May 2025: Events, Challenges, Tournaments, and Rewards

• How To Install Mods For Oblivion Remastered

• The Last of Us season 2 confirms spring 2025 release on HBO

• HBO shares The Last of Us season 2 release window

• Clash Royale Best Boss Bandit Champion decks

• WWE Raw Review, Dec 9, 2024: Rhea Ripley DESTROYED Raquel Rodriguez

• Original The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Designer Says Bethesda’s Remaster Is So Impressive It Could Be Called ‘Oblivion 2.0’

• Weak Hero Class 1 Ending Explained

• Pokémon TCG Pocket announces new Celestial Guardians Expansion along with Half-Year Anniversary events

• Strictly’s Kristina and Ben Split After 12 Years: Financial Woes or Karma?

2025-05-06 02:57