The Department of Justice, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity and Futures Trading Commission are all looking at the case, so I'm pretty optimistic it will be positive for BTC. More regulations are coming to exchanges, and that will be make the crypto world safer for the average guy.
It's all good. Except for Sam Bankman-Fried who should start to feel the heat.
You're mistaken, not only will there be regulation for centralized exchanges but it will be regulation for all crypto industries. It couldn't be more fitting for this rationale for the government to have the opportunity to intervene in crypto as it is now. Having regulation will help us avoid scams but with regulation, they will no longer be called decentralized.
yep
the SEC can only regulate financial payment services.
however the CFTC has a broader scope. they can both regulates the services but also put regulations on the assets themselves
(quota's, quality control, lessen environmental impact, restrict who can invest (only professional investors)
for instance the CFTC along with the EPA put quotas on farming and quality of production. they can restrict which type of fertiliser and weed killer is used. etc.. all to ensure only whitelisted high quality traceable wheat enters the wheat commodity market
this is where if bitcoin is treated more as a commodity rather than an asset it opens the doors for the CFTC and the EPA. which meansin they can go after the mining industry and the the developers to do a PoS detonation(worse case, but possible)
when bitcoin was young 2009-2014 it was not deemed a currency meaning services were treated not as currency exchangers. but as merchants selling collectables(much like how NFT is not being regulated yet.
but since deemed as currency (lobbied under the false pretense of "mainstreaming". then SEC regulators found their way into the door
now if its changing to a commodity. CFTC gets it foot in the door
some will say "yea but what about the benefits that maybe a financial service can finally get an ETF and boom mainstream"
to which i reply "but what about them requiring all wallet developers to add code that meeds regulatory standard. or asks miners to not operate in certain locations or limit hashrate per location