The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has finally responded to Coinbase’s call for clarity on crypto regulations. And it was overwhelmingly underwhelming.

That’s according to the still-US-headquartered (for now) crypto exchange’s Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal.

Coinbase had sued the SEC on April 25, putting forth a petition for a “writ of mandamus”. Essentially, the exchange has been demanding clarity on crypto regulations in the US, which it, and the vast majority of crypto businesses, believes it does not currently have.

The writ required the SEC to respond “within a reasonable time” and the filing asked the ageny to clarify “which digital assets must be registered as securities” – something SEC chair Gary Gensler certainly couldn’t do when grilled by members of Congress recently.

A further stipulation, was that the SEC need only answer “yes or no” to the question of whether it will impose rules on the crypto industry.https://twitter.com/coinbureau/status/1658336610876792835

The SEC’s formal response to the court handling the matter was apparently that the “rulemaking may take years” and that the agency is “in no rush”.

The worst part about the SEC’s dismissal of the sense of urgency from the crypto industry, however, is its acknowledgement that it will, as Grewal put it, “continue to use enforcement actions as a substitute for rulemaking for the forseeable future”.

Meanwhile, get this… the SEC has now asked a court to reduce the whopping US$22 million fine it imposed on the crypto project LBRY Credits for operating as an unregistered security.

The SEC reportedly now recognises that there is Buckley’s and no chance whatsoever of the crypto project being able to stump up that much money to fill the agency’s coffers. So the SEC’s accountants have crunched the numbers at lunchtime down at the Pig & Whistle and have instead written another arbitrary figure on the back of a coaster – US$111,614.

Er, righto, then.

 

Top 10 overview

With the overall crypto market cap at US$1.33 trillion, down 1.2% since this time yesterday, here’s the current state of play among top 10 tokens – according to CoinGecko.

Having reclaimed US$27k earlier in the day, BTC is clearly resting on its laurels here and taking one big smoko. Like the SEC, I guess it’s “in no rush” at this stage of proceedings.

 

Are ‘Chinese cryptos’ set to make another run?

Meanwhile, here’s a wee bit of speculation for you – non-financially advised, of course.

If you’ve been dipping into the rest of the Stockhead site, which we obviously highly recommend, you may have noticed this article from our very own non-fungible Eddy Sunarto, partly titled: Big Short goes long on Chinese tech stocks.

This caught our eye here on Coinhead, because we’ve also been keeping half an eye on the ye olde “Chinese coin” narrative.

“Michael Burry of The Big Short fame is bullish on Chinese tech stocks,” notes Eddy, pointing to this tweet:

 

“[Burry’s] Scion Asset Management portfolio has acquired more Alibaba and JD.com shares, effectively doubling his positions and making them his two top largest positions,” added Eddy, also noting:

“Alibaba and JD haven’t been performing well since their reopening rally in January, with the share prices down by -3% and -34% respectively on a YTD basis.”

What does this mean for crypto? Possibly nothing, but if a savvy investor such as Burry is buying into Chinese tech stocks, then maybe, just maybe, Chinese-related crypto tech (no matter how tenuous the links), which has been making something of an intermittent price comeback so far this year, could be due another push.

We have, after all, been seeing Hong Kong open its arms to its local crypto industry in recent months – a jurisdiction, which, like China has in the past been very strict when it comes to crypto assets and tech.

On June 1, however, Hong Kong is set to take its first steps in a gradual rollout of legalising crypto trading, that will reportedly eventually encompass all Hong Kong citizens and not just select investors.

It’s an apparent effort to help make Hong Kong a major global crypto hub. And not only are HK regulators on board with this aim, but reportedly, so are a handful of Chinese state-controlled banks.

Among other things worth paying attention to, including LSD tokens (see below), the young, highly astute Aussie crypto analyst and content creator Miles Deutscher has been tweeting about this very thing, too, we’ve noticed.

One of Deutscher’s recent YouTube videos (below) dives into the narrative further, where he discusses the potential of “Chinese altcoins”, and recommends keeping an eye on the trading volume of an exchange called UpBit, which is a popular Asian-based platform that the at-times extremely frothy Korean crypto market tends to favour.

“Any coin that even just has a loose affiliation with China, could have a decent run,” speculated Deutscher, “especially heading into the June 1 date.

So what’s on his “Chinese crypto” watchlist? (Noting that “Chinese” in this instance is a broad term that could simply just mean one Chinese founder, or a project that was initially headquartered in Beijing before the Chinese crypto crackdowns, or is just inexplicably popular in Asian markets.)

Some of the most notable on his list: Conflux (CFX); Filecoin (FIL); EOS (EOS); Polkadot (DOT); Klaytn (KLAY); OKB; Alchemy Pay (ACH).

And, just to prove the point, perhaps, how is possibly the most Chinese of these “Chinese coins” tracking today?

According to CoinGecko, Conflux (CFX) is presently leading the crypto gains in the top 100 by market cap and is up 12% over the past 24 hours.

 

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