El Salvador's Top Crypto Regulator Meets With U.S. SEC: 'It Was Very Refreshing'

El Salvador’s Comisión Nacional de Activos Digitales (CNAD), the bureau successful complaint of regulating integer assets successful the Central American nation, is seeking to found a cross-border regulatory sandbox with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

“We privation to make planetary collaboration,” Juan Carlos Reyes, president of the CNAD, told CoinDesk successful an interview. “Our biggest connection is that integer assets don’t person immoderate geographical barriers. Collaboration with regulators should not person planetary barriers either.”

El Salvador is successful a unsocial concern successful that it did not boast of beardown fiscal institutions, oregon adjacent of an existing ecosystem of developers, erstwhile President Nayib Bukele made bitcoin ineligible tender successful 2021. That means the CNAD was capable to commencement with a blank slate erstwhile it introduced a regulatory model tailored to crypto.

Almost 2 years aboriginal aft Reyes took implicit the agency, El Salvador’s advanced regulatory framework has incentivized crypto giants specified arsenic Tether, Bitfinex and Binance to unfastened store successful the country.

The idea, Reyes said, is for the U.S. SEC to present usage El Salvador arsenic a live, real-world lawsuit survey to measure streamlined regulatory approaches for integer assets — successful different words, for the SEC to larn from El Salvador’s acquisition arsenic it revamps its ain regulatory model successful a post-Gensler world.

The aviator programme projected by the CNAD involves antithetic scenarios: a U.S.-licensed accepted concern broker obtaining a integer plus licence nether CNAD regulations, and the improvement of 2 small-scale tokenization offerings facilitated by a CNAD-licensed tokenization company. Each script would beryllium capped astatine $10,000.

These initiatives would enactment immoderate of the objectives laid retired by SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce successful February, erstwhile she wrote that the SEC Crypto Task Force, which she present leads, would instrumentality a precise antithetic attack towards crypto regularisation from present connected out.

“CNAD truly looked astatine [Pierce’s document] with a captious oculus arsenic to however we tin help,” Erica Perkin, proprietor of The Perkin Law Firm and a subordinate of CNAD’s advisory group, told CoinDesk. “We’re here. There's information [the SEC] mightiness privation to collect. It's hard to cod successful the U.S. … We've built a model that's nimble capable to enactment connected the nonstop issues that the SEC is looking at, and we're present to assistance and cod accusation connected however we tin champion bash that.”

The CNAD met with the SEC’s Crypto Task Force connected April 22 to sermon the initiative. The gathering was constructive, according to Reyes and Perkin. “They asked bully questions,” Perkin said. “They're successful an information-gathering phase. They were engaged and unfastened to discussion.”

Reyes has already signed regulatory practice agreements with countries specified arsenic Argentina and Paraguay. In his view, the SEC seems to beryllium up of the curve erstwhile it comes to knowing the regulatory needs of integer assets, whereas regulators successful different jurisdictions person tended to spot crypto regularisation from a accepted concern perspective.

“The prime of radical that marque up the SEC Crypto Task Force is rather impressive. They get it. They recognize the technology,” Reyes said. “We were capable to person discussions that were connected constituent astir what’s needed successful bid to modulate the technology… It was precise refreshing.”