SEC Crypto Roundtable Questions Whether Americans Can Transact Without Surrendering Privacy

The SEC is hosting a task force roundtable on the future of crypto privacy, organized by pro-crypto Commissioner Hester Pierce.

In his opening remarks, Chairman Paul Atkins said the agency is pondering how to empower groundbreaking privacy protocols while addressing “national security threats.”

“Today’s roundtable participants will wrestle with a question that, at its core, is profoundly American: whether people can participate in modern finance without surrendering their privacy. This tension raises important questions. On the one hand, the federal government has an obligation to protect Americans from national security interests and threats, including through measures such as the Bank Secrecy Act, which Treasury and other agencies use to deter illicit finance.

On the other hand, being free to conduct one’s affairs, including financial affairs, free from government and other surveillance is a core American value.”

Atkins says it’s important for regulators to resist the temptation to binge on Americans’ digital data.

“With the advent of crypto, it is no great leap to imagine a steady migration toward a future where the government, and a constellation of intermediaries, can peer into almost every dimension of an individual’s financial life. While regulators may have a voracious appetite for data, that proclivity is obviously—and fundamentally—incompatible with the kind of free society that has made America great.

Regulators must therefore remain humble and principled as we embrace the opportunities that crypto presents. In the analog era, financial surveillance was naturally constrained by paper records, physical distance, and manual processes. These delays, while inconvenient for the government, naturally limited how much information the Commission could obtain about any American investor. However, these constraints have dramatically diminished in the digital era, which is why today’s conversation about crypto and privacy-enhancing technologies is especially important…

Atkins warns crypto could be used to power remarkably invasive levels of surveillance.

“Public blockchains are more transparent than any legacy financial system ever built. Every movement of value is recorded on a ledger that anyone can inspect. Chain analytics firms are already exceptional at assisting law enforcement with linking on-chain activity to off-chain identities. In other words, pushed in the wrong direction, crypto could become the most powerful financial surveillance architecture ever invented.

Indeed, if the instinct of the government is to treat every wallet like a broker, every piece of software as an exchange, every transaction as a reportable event, and every protocol as a convenient surveillance node, then the government will transform this ecosystem into a financial panopticon.”

Atkins says privacy protocols like zero-knowledge proofs have the potential to verify users and transactions are legitimate without enabling the government to map specific activities.

“…This technology allows for privacy-preserving tools that the analog world could not provide, such as zero-knowledge proofs, selective disclosure, and wallet designs that allow users to prove compliance without handing over their entire financial history or personal details to intermediaries or to the government. One can imagine systems where a regulated platform can demonstrate that its users have been screened, without the ability to retain a permanent, person-by-person map of every payment, trade, or donation…

Together, I am confident that we can shape a framework that ensures that neither technological nor financial advancements will come at the expense of personal freedoms.”

 

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