- Recent months have seen politicians and regulators “talking the talk” regarding plans to regulating cryptocurrencies, trading exchanges, and decentralized finance (DeFi) apps.
- Crypto exchange Binance has stopped offering futures and derivatives trading in Europe due to regulatory pressure.
- DeFi leader BlockFi has been targeted by three U.S. states to stop its lending practices ahead of its move to become a publicly-traded company.
- Some U.S. members of Congress introduced a draft bill to regulate cryptos securities and stablecoins.
“Our vision is that Currency.com embraces regulation. When we started, we targeted locations where there was clear guidance already in place. That way we were able to achieve licensing in Europe, some of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), Australia, and now coming to the U.S.,” he said.
Currency.com is headquartered in the CIS country of Belarus. It’s one of the fastest-growing digital exchanges within the market. It’s currently available in 183 countries globally with a planned launch in the U.S. later this year. Gregory was tapped two months ago by the Currency.com leadership to launch access for the platform into the U.S. market.
He has more than 13 years’ experience practicing law at major firms with a deep background in the digital currency space. Prior to joining Currency.com Gregory was Chief Compliance Officer and Corporate Counsel at crypto exchange CEX.IO. Before that, he was a Compliance Officer at the Gemini exchange and played a major role in its U.S. expansion.
“My background is a lot more in the regulatory side. I’ve gone through the [approval] process before. It’s called the Money Transmitter Licenses in the U.S., which is a path a lot of the exchanges take. I’ve successfully gone through that path now two times, so this will be my third time doing it. Even though it’s everchanging because it’s a patchwork of laws from the states, there are some common themes and I think it’s getting more homogenous and we’re starting to see a clear path forward,” Gregory said.
While the philosophy of decentralization and lack of centralized controls are foundational to crypto, Gregory says that it could be better for the industry and mass adoption to have fewer regulatory hoops to jump through.
“I think there is a possibility that there is some overarching federal regulation that comes in, but I think more clarity may be good for the industry. Instead of guessing what all the different states are going to do, an overarching federal framework could be helpful. And I think it’ll add to mass adoption, people will get more and more comfortable with the asset class,” he said.
He says Currency.com is different than other exchanges because it currently offers a wide range of investments spanning cryptocurrencies, government bonds, major stock indices, securities, foreign exchange pairs, and commodities. There are more than 1,700 tokenized assets to choose from right now on Currency.com with plans to offer a total of 10,000 – presenting regulatory opportunities and challenges.
“We built the building blocks of our regulatory strategy here, in the U.S., so we have a plan going forward and we think we can execute on that plan. We have some constraints with the regulatory environment in the U.S. We are regulated to the spot market based on our type of licensing, but I think that there are a lot of cool features we can do within that spot market. I think we may also expand to other markets, like the futures market, options market, and see where we go from there,” Gregory said.
On The Flipside
- The regulatory clock is running for Currency.com. Even though Steve Gregory has run the U.S. regulatory gauntlet successfully before, newly introduced legislation could rescope or even scuttle that previous process.
- A regulatory reboot could place Currency.com back at square one trying to navigate the regulatory framework.
Watch the full interview here:
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