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Governments are trying to work out how to best oversee the $890
billion crypto market, which is currently only covered by patchy
regulation.
Regulators and policymakers have long fretted over the risk to
consumers from cryptocurrencies, with U.S. securities watchdogs
among those to warn about the potential for manipulation of
opaque crypto markets.
"There's much more that can be done," said Urban Angehrn, CEO,
Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA).
"It would seem to me that a lot of trading in digital assets
looks like the U.S. stock market in 1928, where all kinds of
abuse, pump and dump, are now in fact frequently common,"
Angehrn said at a conference in Zurich.
"Let's also think about the potential of technology to make it
easy to deal with the large amounts of data and to protect
consumers from trading on abusive markets," Angehrn said.
Crypto markets have been in turmoil over the past few weeks
after blow-ups at several major companies.
The overall crypto market has slumped to around $900 billion,
down from a record $3 trillion in November, with losses mounting
after U.S. crypto lender Celsius Network last week froze the
accounts of its 1.7 million customers.
Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency, fell below $20,000 on June
18 for the first time since December 2020. It has plummeted
around 60% this year, coming under pressure as soaring inflation
and rising interest rates prompt a flight from stocks and other
higher-risk assets.
The troubles at Celsius are likely to increase U.S. regulatory
pressure on a sector already on the defensive amid other crises
this year.
(Reporting by Brenna Hughes Neghaiwi in Zurich, writing by Tom
Wilson in London. Editing by Jane Merriman)
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