Mark Cuban Says SEC Could Have Prevented FTX if It Had Followed in Japan’s Regulatory Footsteps for Crypto

Celebrity billionaire Mark Cuban thinks the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) could’ve prevented the FTX-related crypto collapse in late 2022.

The Shark Tank star says Japan learned from the infamous 2014 Mt. Gox hack and implemented regulations to protect investors.

“If the SEC had taken the same approach as Japan, there would not have been an FTX issue. Japan FTX didn’t have losses, because they actually learned and put together an approach that put investors first and personal political gain didn’t come into play.” 

Cuban argues that FTX and other collapsed crypto businesses wouldn’t have failed if the SEC had managed to institute audited collateral and segregation of funds requirements. He also argues that other financial sectors present more risk to investors.

“Which of any of the companies not listed on USA exchanges, you know the 12,000 on the pink sheets/OTC (over the counter) that are ‘registered’ via modified requirements in 2021, are going to be groundbreaking and revolutionary?

Which have generated greater losses for speculators over the last 10 years, those penny stocks that trade billions of shares in bankrupt companies or crypto tokens?

Even the scammiest of the scammiest tokens haven’t lost as much money. My point isn’t to say the scam tokens shouldn’t be regulated out of business. They should. My point is that the SEC is really, really bad at protecting investors from scams.”

The billionaire also outlines why he believes in crypto’s utility.

“For crypto: lower cost of capital transfers; immediate collateralized loans; store of value, tokenization of assets; application and retention of royalties to digital assets like books; real-time, low-cost insurance markets; cold storage ownership of significant assets to protect against theft.”

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