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Bitcoin might have reacted to the joint SEC and CFTC heads’ remarks to Congress

06 February 2018 21:00, UTC

Exactly as announced before, the head of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission responsible for regulating ICOs on one of the biggest coin markets and the chief of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission responsible for monitoring Bitcoin futures have talked with the Congress - which in some matters is more influential than the President of the United States himself.

Some observers might have previously feared that this whole discussion would only contain dangerous notions about cryptocurrency being a toxic market instrument, but in reality, both influential agency leaders confirmed that they would pursue fraudsters akin to the recent Coincheck hackers in order to decrease the concern of investors. The Coincheck example was mentioned by one of the Republican senators during the discussion.

Jay Clayton, head of the SEC, has also outlined the possibility of the future legislation designed specifically for the cryptocurrency market, as sometimes the agencies (the Fed, the SEC, the CFTC and the Treasury) lack required powers to protect investors. The protection of investors was one of the key topics of this meeting, but money laundering and tax evasion were mentioned as well. The riskiness of the market has also been described. “If you are going to give them (fraudsters and irresponsible startuppers - Bitnewstoday) money, you’d better be prepared to lose it,” Mr. Clayton warned.

As noted by the participants, the price of Bitcoin might react to this event - and yes, after this event happened, the number has grown almost by a thousand dollars (+19% in 24 hours). Of course, this is only an assumption, as every asset price depends on many factors.