1inch Lawyer Sees Agencies Driving US Crypto Regulation as Midterms Unfold

With voting underway in the US midterm elections and control of Congress at stake, Maylea Ma, deputy general counsel at 1inch, expects federal agencies to lead the next phase of crypto regulation. According to Cointelegraph, Ma said the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Commodity Futures Trading Commission and Treasury are more likely than Congress to produce “real movement” in digital-asset regulation over the next few years. The election could also affect the future of the stalled CLARITY Act, but Ma said agencies are increasingly engaging with crypto projects. She added that this activity does not offer the stability the industry sought through legislation, saying the long-term goal remains a statute that cannot be reversed whenever the government changes. Michael Ho, co-founder of D3, the team behind Doma Protocol, said the stalled market structure bill leaves US crypto policy dependent on agency guidance that a future administration could reverse, keeping institutional capital waiting. Ho said clear rules enacted into law would bring institutional investment into tokenized real-world assets. In August, the SEC proposed a crypto fundraising framework that included exemptions for certain token offerings and a safe harbor from treatment as investment contracts. In September, the agency updated staff guidance on token buybacks, crypto networks and staking receipt tokens. The CFTC submitted a crypto market regulatory plan for White House review on Sept. 17, two days after the Senate failed to advance the CLARITY Act.