By Nicholas Larsen, International Banker
On January 10, the North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA) released its annual list of top investor threats, and, without breaking a sweat, investments tied to cryptocurrencies and digital assets grabbed the top spot. As such, the conversation around the global regulation of this still relatively new asset class continues to become ever more pertinent.
“By far, NASAA’s securities regulators revealed that investments related to cryptocurrencies and digital assets is our top investor threat,” said Joseph P. Borg, Enforcement Section Committee co-chair and Alabama Securities Commission’s director. “Stories of ‘crypto millionaires’ attracted some investors to try their hand at investing in cryptocurrencies or crypto-related investments this year, and with them, many stories of those who bet big and lost big began appearing, and they will continue to appear in 2022.”
This undesirable award also soon came hot on the heels of separate news that cryptocurrency-based crime in 2021 hit a new all-time high, with blockchain-data firm Chainalysis’ annual “Crypto Crime Report” for 2022 noting that $14 billion of funds were estimated to have been illicit over the previous year, almost double the $7.8 billion it had recorded for 2020.
That said, Chainalysis did defend the space on the basis that the growth of legitimate cryptocurrency usage easily outpaced the growth of criminal usage, so the…
