BITCOIN researcher Peter Van Valkenburgh has issued a warning for potential investors of “securities masquerading cryptocurrencies” after Hong Kong’s own securities regulator appeared to step up its efforts.

Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) revealed it sent several warning letters to cryptocurrency exchanges involved with initial coin offerings (ICO).

The move is part of a wider effort by the SFC to caution investors about the risks of trading in cryptocurrencies.

The SFC wrote to the unnamed ICO organisers that are soliciting investors from Hong Kong and whose tokens are considered securities – a right to ownership as represented by an option – by the agency.

Mr Van Valkenburgh, Coin Center’s director of research, has been educating regulators about bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
Speaking to Bloomberg, he said: “These agencies do different things and have different expertise.

“Both intersect with this new technology and this open blockchain networks.

“The CFTC is going to going to be the permeative regulator of derivatives where the underlying commodity is a digital commodity, like bitcoin or ethereum.

“And the SEC is going to be the permeative regulator of people who sell tokens on the promise of profit, where we rely on those people to make the profits real.
“In other news, securities that are masquerading as cryptocurrencies.”

The issue was raised before the Senate Banking Committee, Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Jay Clayton.

Mr Clayton said: “I believe every ICO I’ve seen is a security… You can call it a coin but if it functions as a security, it is a security.

“Those who engage in semantic gymnastics or elaborate re-structuring exercises in an effort to avoid having a coin be a security are squarely in the crosshairs of our enforcement provision.”