Thank you, Austan, for the warm welcome. It is really a pleasure to join you in Chicago for this year's Fed Listens event.1 When we started Fed Listens back in 2019, the initiative was part of a broad, comprehensive review of the decisionmaking framework we use to pursue our monetary policy goals of maximum employment and price stability. In the years that followed, we have met with people from across the country and from a wide variety of backgrounds and experiences to learn about how the economy has been recovering from the COVID experience. Each Fed Listens event created a wonderful opportunity to take a step back, to ask questions of those who are directly impacted by our policies and the prevailing economic conditions, and then really listen to their feedback. I am extremely proud that Fed Listens has grown and developed into an ongoing venue for the Federal Reserve Board and the Reserve Banks to foster an ongoing conversation and discussion with those who are directly experiencing current economic conditions. As many of you may recall, at last year's Fed Listens event here in Chicago, we discussed youth employment and joining the labor force following the pandemic, which were especially inspiring. So, in that spirit, today is not only a wonderful opportunity to continue this important conversation in the Seventh District, but also an opportunity to dig deeper into issues that affect local families through the childcare industry, working parents, and employers. Austan and I enjoyed getting to know our panelists better earlier today, and I am looking forward to learning more about their experiences through the upcoming panels and discussions. I am also very pleased to welcome our audience—both in person and those tuning in online. I view Fed Listens as an excellent example of Board and System convenings that enable us to gain important insights about economic conditions by engaging directly with those experiencing the economy. As you all know, Fed officials and economists review a vast amount of economic data on a regular basis. Discussions like those we will engage in today provide color and context to supplement the other economic data we monitor. Your perspectives help us gain deeper insights into how we are meeting our dual mandate of maintaining maximum employment and stable prices. A better understanding of a wide variety of this type of data, from the considerations families face in making spending decisions (including the costs of childcare) to factors weighed by business owners in applying for loans and offering benefits to help attract top talent, all provide better insight into our data collection. These conversations help us to gain perspective on how Americans in different areas of the country are faring. Some of the issues discussed today may be unique to the Seventh District, but certainly many of these themes and dynamics are present throughout the country and across all 12 Federal Reserve Districts. Seeking out local perspectives is one of the great advantages of the Federal Reserve System's regional structure and of the Fed Listens structure in particular. Earlier, I had the pleasure to meet each of the panelists you'll hear from today. Their varied experiences and backgrounds across sectors lay an important foundation for today's discussion. We hope that our attendees will also join in to share your own observations as you experience these issues in your own lives, businesses, and communities. Your perspective will help to inform our work as policymakers with the responsibility to promote a strong and vibrant economy for all Americans. So with that, I would like to say, thank you again, Austan, and especially to recognize your entire Chicago Fed team for hosting this Fed Listens event today and for the opportunity to be part of this discussion. Without further ado, I am delighted to get our conversation started by turning things over to Robin Newberger, who is a policy advisor here at the Chicago Fed. 1. The views expressed here are my own and are not necessarily those of my colleagues on the Federal Reserve Board or the Federal Open Market Committee.

Prologue* What follows is a speech I delivered at the William & Mary Business Law Review’s Third Annual Symposium entitled “Regulating Finance in a Changing Administrative State” on April 1, 2023. Since then, there have been many developments in the world of crypto asset securities, some of which I address in an epilogue to the speech, below. Table of Contents Introduction I. Everything “New” is Old—Really Old—and Well-Established II. Investors in Crypto Asset Securities Are Being Harmed as We Speak III. Innovation and Compliance Are Not Incompatible.  IV. Public Trust Requires Robust Enforcement of the Securities Laws. Conclusion Epilogue Introduction Thank you to the William & Mary Business Law Review for hosting this symposium and for inviting me to participate. I’m thrilled to be back at my law school alma mater. This is a special place – one that not only helped me hone my legal skills, but also one that helped mold me into a “citizen lawyer.” For me, it was my experience with the late Professor John Levy and participating in the legal aid clinic that he ran that first showed me how we can use our law degrees to not only protect, but also to uplift others. It’s an experience that has helped shape my entire public service journey. I’m grateful that the law school continues to train excellent citizen lawyers—a number of whom I’ve had the privilege of working with during my time as New Jersey Attorney General and now at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”). I am equally grateful that in developing the next generation of citizen lawyers the law school is emphasizing inclusion – a core value that has guided much of my work. * * * Today’s topic – “Regulating Finance in a Changing Administrative State” – is no doubt a timely one, but also one that could easily serve as my job description. And the panels you’ve organized touch on nearly every aspect of our work in the Enforcement Division. So naturally, I have many thoughts I would like to share with you, but before I do, I must make clear that my remarks today are in my official capacity as the Director of the Division of Enforcement, but do not necessarily reflect the views of the Commission, the Commissioners, or other members of the staff. Perhaps I should also add to that disclaimer that the views I plan to share this morning may not be the most popular you will hear today. I think that is because the theme underlying this symposium is a concept that I not only disagree with, but is also one that is frequently advanced in some corners—that technological innovations have so dramatically transformed the financial markets since the 1930s, when Congress first passed the federal securities laws and created the SEC to enforce them,[1] that those laws are now somehow ill-suited to regulate our financial markets, especially when it comes to crypto assets. Some of our critics—perhaps a number of you—argue, instead, that new, bespoke rules and regulations are needed for this particular industry. They believe that this is best achieved either through notice and comment agency rulemaking or by Congress developing an entirely new regulatory framework for crypto assets. At the same time, a number of defendants are using newly crafted legal concepts like the “major questions doctrine,” to challenge certain SEC enforcement actions as being beyond the authorities Congress delegated to the SEC.[2] You will no doubt discuss all of these issues and more throughout the day, but in many cases you will do so in the abstract. What I would like to do this morning is provide you with some context because the securities laws are anything but abstract to the millions of investors that are harmed when promoters of securities, including crypto asset securities, and others engage in fraudulent activity or otherwise violate our rules and regulations. I. Everything “New” is Old—Really Old—and Well-Established The history of our securities laws makes clear that Congress always intended the definition of what is a security to be principles-based and flexible to cover the many kinds of schemes where promoters seek others’ money and promise profits in return. [3] Following the stock market crash of 1929, in the midst of the Great Depression and during a period of grave economic crisis, there was a general loss of trust in our financial markets. In response, Congress passed the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, which created the SEC, to protect investors and the markets.[4] A key feature of the Securities Act was to require companies offering “securities” and raising money from the public to register their offerings with the SEC and to provide investors full, fair, and truthful disclosures of material information about their offerings, their financial health, and their executives.[5] The Act defined “securities” broadly to include various kinds of investments, including what it called an “investment contract.”[6] No sooner was the Act passed than companies began arguing that whatever they were doing did not constitute the offer and sale of securities and, therefore, they did not need to comply with the law’s registration requirements. To support their positions, the companies often focused on the name or form of the product or transaction, not its substance. They argued that because their form of offering was not specifically enumerated by statute, it did not need to be registered.[7] Sound familiar? And as happens today, back then the SEC sued to stop ongoing unregistered securities offerings. Time and again, federal courts focused on the economic reality of the transactions at issue and the broad investor protections Congress intended to advance in enacting the federal securities laws. And time and again, those courts determined that the transactions at issue—ranging from investment opportunities in oil barrels to fishing boats to silver foxes—did in fact constitute the offer or sale of securities.[8]  And then in 1946, the Supreme Court issued its seminal opinion in SEC v. Howey, setting forth the test for what constitutes an “investment contract,” and therefore a security, for purposes of the federal securities laws.[9] The Court explained that Congress intended “investment contract” to apply broadly to a variety of situations in which individuals invested money in a common enterprise with the expectation that they would earn a profit through the efforts of others.[10] This approach “embodie[d] a flexible rather than a static principle, one that is capable of adaptation to meet the countless and variable schemes devised by those who seek the use of the money of others on the promise of profits.”[11] And Howey has proven to be a remarkably flexible and resilient test that courts have since applied to find a wide variety of offerings to be investment contracts and, thus, securities. The list includes offerings related to whiskey, cosmetics, self-improvement courses, and pay phones,[12] as well as a surprising number of creatures: earthworms, beavers, chinchillas, and even cattle embryos.[13] Notably, none of these offerings involved stocks or bonds or the kinds of investments you or I might have in our portfolios. And that’s really the point of Howey: whether something is a security depends on the substance of the transaction – not its name, not its form, and not its underlying technology. As Justice Thurgood Marshall put it decades later, “Congress painted with a broad brush,”[14] and its “purpose in enacting the securities laws was to regulate investments, in whatever form they are made and by whatever name they are called.”[15] Critics who now dismiss Howey as outdated because it involved orange groves nearly 80 years ago and demand a new regulatory regime overlook this history and, I think, completely miss the point: the definition of a security is, and has always been, principles-based to allow for the flexibility that comes with innovative investment products, technology-driven or otherwise. II. Investors in Crypto Asset Securities Are Being Harmed as We Speak Against this backdrop, the “major question” for us is: are investors being hurt within our remit? If the answer is yes, then we must act, and we must do so with a sense of urgency. And increasingly, the answer to that question has been yes. The current turmoil in the crypto markets is taking a real toll on everyday Americans. According to one survey, approximately 16% of U.S. adults have invested, traded, or used crypto, and among that group approximately 46% report their investments have done worse than they expected.[16] While some of this may be the result of natural market forces, some of it is certainly due to fraud and other unlawful activity. Let me give you an overview of the type of activity we are encountering because it’s quite often left out of conversations like the ones you will have at this conference. To date, the SEC has charged many issuers with failing to register initial coin offerings, as well as their offerings of so-called lend, earn, and staking products, meaning that the offerings lacked required disclosures – disclosures that ensure that investors can make informed investment decisions.[17] The SEC has also alleged in a number of our actions that certain unregistered crypto offerings are nothing but straight rips, Ponzi schemes, affinity frauds, or other types of scams.[18] In the actions the SEC has recently brought in this space, our allegations have described, among other things: Products labeled as “defi” offerings that are neither decentralized, nor finance, but rather frauds;[19] Stablecoins that are neither stable, nor coins, but rather fraudulent;[20] So-called “trusted” protocols and “smart contracts” that, despite representations to the contrary, can be, and are, used to manipulate the market for crypto asset securities;[21] Platforms, protocols, and exchanges that fail to provide any details about their cybersecurity risks subjected to malicious attacks that result in investor harm;[22] and In the end, investors, large and small, defrauded, and billions in customer assets misused or stolen.[23]   Some of these alleged schemes have resulted in lines of investor victims at the doors of bankruptcy courts hoping to recover a fraction of their hard-earned money.[24] And just this week, the SEC alleged that a noncompliant crypto intermediary simultaneously acted as exchange, broker, and clearing agency without registering with the SEC—thereby putting investors at risk from conflicts of interest and inadequate oversight.[25] So, while we can appreciate the innovation around, and the technological advancements of, blockchain and distributed ledger technology, we must also be cognizant of the risks and harms to investors associated with the related products and offerings. As in any other space, we have a duty to analyze whether the activity is subject to the federal securities laws and, if so, whether those laws have been violated. And that’s precisely what we have done. Over the last decade, based on Enforcement Division investigations and recommendations, the SEC has brought well over 100 crypto-related actions involving unlawful activity across the crypto markets as I have just outlined. And in every case, where federal courts have had to determine whether there were “securities” at issue, the courts have applied the Howey test—looked at the economic realities of the offerings, and, even though the offerings at issue involved supposedly novel technologies, rejected defense arguments that they were not securities.[26] During this same period, the SEC has spoken clearly and consistently about the applicability of the securities laws in the crypto space, citing decades of Supreme Court precedent explaining the test for determining whether something is an “investment contract,” and thus a security.[27] To put it bluntly, there is not a lawyer or market participant in this area that does not know the applicable regulatory framework and tests. As Chair Gensler has stated, “Not liking the message isn’t the same thing as not receiving it.” [28] That is also likely why courts have rejected “fair notice” and due process arguments in a number of these actions.[29] III. Innovation and Compliance Are Not Incompatible I would like to turn now to another topic that also sometimes gets lost in the headlines, and that is the importance of compliance in the crypto markets. First, when issuers of crypto asset securities do not comply with registration requirements, investors and analysts do not get mandatory disclosures about the issuer, their offerings, and their financial condition. Investors cannot make informed investment decisions without that information. Disclosures that are especially important in a market of thousands of different offerings involving technology that most laypeople do not understand.[30] Second, in a compliant securities market, separate functions generally are performed by different legal entities, each of which are subject to separate regulations that protect investors. This creates separation and even a healthy degree of antagonism between the functions: brokers do not want to execute their clients’ trades on questionable exchanges, and exchanges do not want to work with unreliable clearing agencies. Importantly, national securities exchanges do not take custody of assets that trade on the exchange and thus do not have the ability to lend them out or use them to make risky bets. In contrast, in the crypto world sometimes these functions collapse under one roof, as we alleged just this week with respect to the Beaxy exchange.[31] This aggregation of functions creates significant conflicts of interest and exponentially increases risk of investor harm as we saw with the collapse of FTX, where we allege that Sam Bankman-Fried and others not only fraudulently raised billions of dollars from investors in FTX, but also misused billions in funds belonging to FTX’s trading customers.[32] Finally, in a compliant securities market, the firms fulfilling these various functions, such as exchanges, broker-dealers, and clearinghouses, are subject to supervision, oversight, and examination by the SEC.[33] Among other things, they are required to maintain books and records and make them available to the SEC, and they are required to have internal controls.[34] This all provides additional, essential layers of protection for investors. The quarrel, therefore, is with noncompliant actors, not the technology or its promises. The technology is actually beside the point. We have to regulate markets and protect investors based on current realities and existing risks. There are no exceptions to the application of the federal securities laws based on the future potential or benefits that an offering may provide. Moreover, innovation and compliance with the securities laws are not mutually exclusive. As Chair Gensler has repeatedly stated, the SEC staff stand ready to work with crypto entrepreneurs and understand the need to be flexible in applying our disclosure requirements.[35] IV. Public Trust Requires Robust Enforcement of the Securities Laws I would like to finish by touching on a topic that’s important to this conversation and a bit personal for me: public trust. In my early speeches as Enforcement Director, I spoke about the declining trust in our financial institutions and markets.[36] While there is no single cause for this decline, it is in part due to the perception that we—the regulators—are failing to hold bad actors accountable, coupled with the belief that there are two sets of rules: one for the big and powerful and another for everyone else. None of this is abstract either. I’ve seen it firsthand as a federal, county, and state prosecutor. I saw it firsthand speaking to victims as my state’s attorney general, and I see it now in this role. And the effects of this diminished trust can be especially pronounced among minority and marginalized communities. For example, studies show that a majority of Black Americans, Hispanic Americans, and LGBTQ Americans feel that traditional financial institutions “are not meant for people like me.”[37] Due to historical injustices and negative experiences, many members of these communities may also have skepticism, or outright hostility, towards the government. This lack of trust can lead to further victimization. I’ve seen this with certain types of affinity frauds, especially among immigrant communities, where the perpetrator may appeal to the victims’ closeness to their own community and potentially their suspicion of outsiders.[38] Not infrequently, we encounter suspicion so strong that the victims are reluctant to cooperate with us or believe our allegations even in the face of overwhelming evidence of the fraud. And through these experiences, I have developed a playbook, one that we are employing at the Enforcement Division, to protect investors and reclaim and enhance public trust. It’s built on three principles: robust enforcement – moving our investigations with a sense of urgency and addressing emerging risks; robust remedies – seeking penalties and remedies at levels adequate to both hold bad actors accountable and deter misconduct; and robust compliance ­­­­– working with market participants and gatekeepers to create a culture of compliance and cooperation to prevent misconduct.[39] Another response to this decline in trust has been the “predatory inclusion” tactics of crypto entities directed at Black, brown, and other marginalized communities.[40] Here, I’m talking about the familiar (but so far unsupported) narratives that crypto will be predicated on a permissionless and trustless environment; that it will increase financial inclusion;[41] that it will uplift the unbanked or underbanked; that it will help them build wealth and increase upward mobility; and that if you “step right up, everyone’s a winner.”[42] We’ve also seen predatory tactics on full display in case after case, where the SEC has alleged that “influencers” are touting unregistered offerings to investors without disclosing that they are being compensated to do so.[43] We allege they do so by lying about their returns from their own, in some cases fictional, crypto investments, and without disclosing they are being paid tens of thousands of dollars for their tweets.[44] Whether it’s the direct result of these efforts or for other reasons beyond the scope of this presentation, crypto assets are the only major financial products that Black Americans are more likely to own than white Americans.[45] And there is some evidence that Black and brown investors have now been disproportionately harmed during the downturn of crypto markets over the last two years.[46] But despite such losses in the crypto industry, distrust in the traditional financial system is still driving investors towards crypto. We saw that just a few weeks ago when the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and questions about the stability of the wider banking system pushed increased interest in crypto assets.[47] In some ways, we are now at the intersection of the two responses to addressing diminished public trust I just outlined. People who looked to crypto as a refuge from the ills of traditional finance are now experiencing those same ills in the crypto markets. They are being harmed by the very types of behavior that led Congress to create the securities laws in the first place—the same behaviors that have led to reduced trust in the markets: misstatements or misleading disclosures, conflicts of interest, and insiders abusing their positions for personal advantages at the expense of ordinary investors.[48] I believe that in this moment, we have to leverage the playbook I described. We must act with all the tools at our disposal to protect investors and enhance public trust and confidence in our markets. This means continuing to get behind the labels, focusing on substance over form, ensuring that actors comply with the securities laws, and holding those that do not accountable, without fear or favor. Conclusion In the end, I believe that it should be against this backdrop of real investor harm, precedent, and the need to enhance public trust and confidence in our markets, that you consider the familiar industry talking points (or tweets in this day and age), that I’m certain you’ll hear (or reference) throughout the day—that according to some we are exceeding our authority, regulating by enforcement, stifling innovation, and driving it overseas. As long as investors in securities are being harmed now, we must act now. Thank you again to the William & Mary Business Law Review for inviting me to speak to you today. I am privileged to have had this opportunity and I hope that you have a great, contextualized discussion today. Thank you so much. Epilogue By the time I became Enforcement Director in July 2021, the SEC had already brought dozens of enforcement actions to address widespread noncompliance in the crypto markets. But, noncompliance, and the attendant investor risk, remained pervasive. Meanwhile, four months later, the combined market capitalization of crypto assets reached approximately $3 trillion. [49] This marked a 15-fold increase from just two years earlier.[50] Soon after, however, the crypto market cratered, abetted by a series of high-profile failures and bankruptcies of major firms that caused extensive investor losses.[51] It lost two-thirds of its market capitalization in just nine months, shedding value even quicker than it had gained it.[52]  In short, my tenure as Director has coincided with extreme volatility and investor risk in the crypto markets. This has been vividly demonstrated by the dramatic increase in the number of complaints about crypto that investors submitted to the SEC’s Office of Investor Education and Advocacy (“OIEA”), from 820 in fiscal year 2019,[53] the first year that OIEA’s annual list of Top Ten Categories of Complaints included crypto, to 5,357 in fiscal year 2023.[54] In response to this upheaval and rampant noncompliance, we have redoubled our enforcement efforts, some of which I was privileged to highlight in my speech at William & Mary. Perhaps unsurprisingly, there have been even more developments in the crypto markets since those remarks. Just days later, the Pew Research Center released a survey finding that nearly a third of Americans who had ever invested in, traded, or used crypto, no longer held any. [55] The number of lower-income Americans who had gotten out of crypto was even higher, at 43%,[56] providing another vivid rejoinder to the narrative that crypto will uplift the unbanked, help them build wealth, and increase upward mobility.[57] The same survey found that a whopping three-quarters of Americans who have heard about crypto do not believe that crypto is reliable and safe.[58] Given the continued noncompliance in this space, they have good reasons to be concerned. For example, in June 2023, the SEC charged the operators of the largest crypto asset trading platform in the world with allegedly combining the functions of an exchange, broker, dealer, and clearing agency without complying with the registration provisions of the federal securities laws applicable to any of those functions, depriving investors of crucial investor protections.[59] The SEC’s complaint also alleged that the operators commingled certain customer assets and attempted to evade U.S. securities laws by announcing sham controls that they disregarded so that they could keep high-value U.S. customers on their platforms.[60] The next day, the SEC also charged the operator of the largest crypto asset trading platform in the United States with intertwining the traditional services of an exchange, broker, and clearing agency without complying with the registration provisions applicable to any of them.[61] Taken together, these matters, which were brought just about two months after my remarks, highlight what I believe to be the continued risk to investors in the crypto markets.[62] As if that were not enough, the Enforcement Division continues to address fraud and noncompliance in new and old forms in the crypto space. Among others, the SEC filed its first actions charging the illegal unregistered offerings of crypto asset securities in the form of purported non-fungible tokens (NFTs), applying the same well-trod test discussed above to determine that the NFTs were offered and sold as “investment contracts,” and therefore were securities.[63] The SEC also brought its first case charging a purportedly decentralized autonomous organization with failing to register its pooled crypto asset vehicles as investment companies, as required under the federal securities laws.[64] And in another recent action, the SEC brought charges against individuals allegedly responsible for a $1.7 billion crypto asset-related pyramid scheme.[65] Also notable, since my remarks, several courts have issued rulings in ongoing litigation expressly reaffirming Howey’s application to crypto assets and rejecting not only the defendants’ blanket arguments that the crypto assets at issue were not securities, but also, in the cases where the court addressed it, their attempt to invoke the “major questions doctrine.”[66] In addition, in April 2024, the SEC completed its first trial involving crypto asset securities. After a nine-day trial, a jury in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York found the defendants liable for orchestrating what the SEC alleged was a years-long fraud involving crypto asset securities that led to massive investor losses when the scheme unraveled.[67] Following the verdict, the defendants agreed to pay more than $4.5 billion in disgorgement, prejudgment interest, and civil penalties.[68] In sum, the crypto markets remain fast-moving, volatile, and, I believe, rife with investor risk. But as the foregoing remarks and this epilogue make clear (and if the past and my remarks at William & Mary are prologue), the Division of Enforcement has moved with urgency, and will continue to do so, to fulfill our investor protection mandate in these markets. * Gurbir S. Grewal was appointed Director of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission’s (“SEC”) Division of Enforcement in June 2021, effective July 26, 2021. Immediately before joining the Commission, Gurbir was the Attorney General for the State of New Jersey. Prior to that, he served as the Bergen County Prosecutor, the chief law enforcement officer for New Jersey’s most populous county. Earlier in his career, Gurbir served as an Assistant United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey, where he was Chief of the Economic Crimes Unit, and an Assistant United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, where he was assigned to the Business and Securities Fraud Unit. He was also an attorney in private practice. He holds a J.D. from the College of William & Mary, Marshall-Wythe School of Law, and a B.S. in Foreign Service from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. Since assuming the role of Director, Gurbir has focused on enhancing investor protection and confidence in our markets by emphasizing proactive enforcement efforts and stressing the need to create a culture of compliance among market participants. This article is provided in the author’s official capacity as the SEC’s Director of the Division of Enforcement but does not necessarily reflect the views of the Commission, the Commissioners, or other members of the staff. I would like to thank Theis Finlev, Counsel to the Director; David Hirsch, Former Chief of the SEC’s Crypto Assets and Cyber Unit; and Jorge G. Tenreiro, Acting Chief of the SEC’s Crypto Assets and Cyber Unit, for their assistance with this speech and article. [1] The Securities Act of 1933 (“Securities Act”), 15 U.S.C. § 77a; The Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (“Exchange Act”), 15 U.S.C. § 78a. [2] See Allison Orr Larsen, Becoming a Doctrine, 76 Fla. L. Rev. 1, 5 (2024) (noting that the phrase, “major questions doctrine,” “was used just once by any federal judge before 2017, and in only five federal decisions—at any level of court—before 2020.”). [3] Elisabeth A. Keller, Introductory Comment: A Historical Introduction to the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, 49 Ohio St. L. Rev. 339, 340–41 (1988). [4] See Ernst & Ernst v. Hochfelder, 425 U.S. 185, 194–95 (1976) (explaining that the Securities Act of 1933 was passed in the aftermath of the market crash of 1929 and “was designed to provide investors with full disclosure of material information concerning public offerings of securities in commerce, to protect investors against fraud and, through the imposition of specified civil liabilities, to promote ethical standards of honesty and fair dealing.”). [5] Id. [6] Securities Act § 2(a)(1). [7] See SEC v. W.J. Howey Co., 328 U.S. 293, 297 (1946); SEC v. C.M. Joiner Leasing Corp., 320 U.S. 344, 350 (1943). [8] See, e.g., SEC v. Crude Oil Corp., 93 F.2d 844, 848 (7th Cir. 1937) (sales of barrels of oil); SEC v. Pyne, 33 F. Supp. 988, 989 (D. Mass. 1940) (sales of shares in fishing boats); SEC v. Payne, 35 F. Supp. 873, 877 (S.D.N.Y. 1940) (sales of silver foxes, for breeding and re-sale purposes). [9] W.J. Howey Co., 328 U.S. at 298–301. [10] Id. Courts have since divided the Howey test into three elements: (1) an investment of money; (2) in a common enterprise; and (3) with a reasonable expectation of profits derived from the efforts of others. [11] Id. [12] SEC v. Edwards, 540 U.S. 389, 391, 397 (2004) (payphone sale-and-leaseback agreements); Glen-Arden Commodities, Inc. v. Costantino, 493 F.2d 1027, 1035 (2d Cir. 1974) (casks of Scotch whiskey); SEC v. Koscot Interplanetary, Inc., 497 F.2d 473, 485–86 (5th Cir. 1974) (cosmetics distributorships); SEC v. Glenn W. Turner Enters., Inc., 474 F.2d 476, 482–83 (9th Cir. 1973) (self-improvement courses). [13] Eberhardt v. Waters, 901 F.2d 1578, 1579, 1582 (11th Cir. 1990) (cattle embryos); Smith v. Gross, 604 F.2d 639, 641–43 (9th Cir. 1979) (earthworms); Miller v. Cent. Chinchilla Grp., Inc., 494 F.2d 414, 415–16 (8th Cir. 1974) (chinchillas); Cont’l Mktg. Corp. v. SEC, 387 F.2d 466, 468, 471 (10th Cir. 1967) (beavers). [14] Reves v. Ernst & Young, 494 U.S. 56, 60 (1990). [15] Id. at 61. [16] See Michelle Faverio & Navid Massarat, 46% of Americans Who Have Invested in Cryptocurrency Say It’s Done Worse Than Expected, Pew Rsch. Ctr. (Aug. 23, 2022), https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/08/23/46-of-americans-who-have-invested-in-cryptocurrency-say-its-done-worse-than-expected/ [17] See, e.g., Press Release, SEC, Kraken to Discontinue Unregistered Offer and Sale of Crypto Asset Staking-As-A-Service Program and Pay $30 Million to Settle SEC Charges (Feb. 9, 2023) (settled order), https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2023-25 (announcing the SEC charging Kraken “with failing to register the offer and sale of its crypto asset staking-as-a-service program whereby investors transfer crypto assets to Kraken for staking in exchange for advertised annual investment returns of as much as 21 percent.”); Press Release, SEC, SEC Charges Genesis and Gemini for the Unregistered Offer and Sale of Crypto Asset Securities through the Gemini Earn Lending Program (Jan. 12, 2023), https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2023-7 (announcing the SEC charging Genesis and Gemini “for the unregistered offer and sale of” “the Gemini Earn crypto asset lending program” through which Gemini customers loaned their crypto assets to Genesis in exchange for Genesis’s promise to pay interest); Press Release, SEC, BlockFi Agrees to Pay $100 Million in Penalties and Pursue Registration of its Crypto Lending Product (Feb. 14, 2022) (settled order), https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2022-26 (announcing the SEC charging BlockFi “with failing to register the offer and sale of its retail crypto lending product”); Press Release, SEC, SEC Charges Three Individuals in Digital Asset Frauds (Feb. 1, 2021), https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2021-22 (announcing the SEC charging “three individuals with defrauding hundreds of retail investors out of more than $11 million through two fraudulent and unregistered digital asset securities offerings”); Press Release, SEC, Unregistered ICO Issuer Agrees to Disable Tokens and Pay Penalty for Distribution to Harmed Investors (Sept. 15, 2020) (settled order), https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2020-211 (announcing the SEC charging operator of an online eSports gaming and gambling platform with “conduct[ing] . . . unregistered initial coin offering . . . of digital asset securities”); Press Release, SEC, SEC Charges Film Producer, Rapper, and Others for Participation in Two Fraudulent ICOs (Sept. 11, 2020) (settled order against some parties), https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2020-207 (announcing the SEC charging film producer and others for their roles in unregistered and fraudulent ICOs in which producer allegedly misappropriated millions of dollars raised from ICOs to fund own lavish purchases); Press Release, SEC, SEC Charges Issuer and CEO With Misrepresenting Platform Technology in Fraudulent ICO (Aug. 13, 2020) (settled order), https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2020-181 (announcing the SEC charging Boon.Tech and CEO with fraud and unregistered offer and sale of “$5 million . . . ICO of digital asset securities.”). [18] See, e.g., Press Release, SEC, SEC Charges Exiled Chinese Businessman Miles Guo and His Financial Advisor William Je in $850 Million Fraud Scheme (Mar. 15, 2023), https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2023-50 (announcing the SEC charging Guo for his role in several unregistered and fraudulent offerings, including fraudulent crypto asset offering known as H-Coin or Himalaya Coin which “raised hundreds of millions of dollars”); Press Release, SEC, Charges Creator of CoinDeal Crypto Scheme and Seven Others in Connection with $45 Million Fraud (Jan. 4, 2023), https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2023-2 (announcing the SEC charging promotors for falsely claiming that investors could earn “extravagant returns by investing in a blockchain technology called CoinDeal that would be sold for trillions of dollars to a group of prominent and wealthy buyers.” SEC alleged that supposed sale never occurred and promoters “misappropriated millions of dollars of investor funds for their personal use.”); Press Release, SEC, SEC Charges Creator of Global Crypto Ponzi Scheme and Three US Promoters in Connection with $295 Million Fraud (Nov. 2, 2022), https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2022-201 (announcing the SEC charging individuals for their role in “a fraudulent crypto Ponzi scheme that raised” bitcoin worth more than $295 million “from more than 100,000 investors worldwide”); Press Release, SEC, SEC Charges The Hydrogen Technology Corp. and its Former CEO for Market Manipulation of Crypto Asset Securities (Sept. 28, 2022), https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2022-175 (announcing the SEC charging Hydrogen Technology Corp. and former CEO for roles in “unregistered offers and sales of crypto asset securities called “Hydro” and for perpetrating a scheme to manipulate the trading volume and price of those securities,” “yield[ing] more than $2 million for Hydrogen”).  [19] See, e.g., Blockchain Credit Partners et al., Securities Act Release No. 10961, Exchange Act Release No. 92588, Administrative Proceeding File No. 3-20453, 2021 WL 3470599, at *1–2 (Aug. 6, 2021) (settled order) (alleging that “DeFi Money Market” used smart contracts and “decentralized finance” to sell $30 million in unregistered and fraudulent offerings).  [20] See, e.g., Press Release, SEC, SEC Charges Terraform and CEO Do Kwon with Defrauding Investors in Crypto Schemes (Feb. 16, 2023), https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2023-32 (announcing the SEC alleging that price of purported “Terra USD” stablecoin was in fact controlled by defendants). [21] See, e.g., Press Release, SEC, SEC Charges Avraham Eisenberg with Manipulating Mango Markets’ ‘Governance Token’ to Steal $116 Million of Crypto Assets (Jan. 20, 2023), https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2023-13 (announcing the SEC alleging Eisenberg used accounts he controlled on Mango Markets crypto asset trading platform to manipulate market for so-called governance token MNGO). [22] See, e.g., id.; see generally Complaint, SEC v. BitConnect, No. 1:21-cv-07349 (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 1, 2021) (alleging that approximately $1.71 million worth of Bitcoin stolen in hack).  [23] See, e.g., supra notes 7–11 and accompanying text; Press Release, SEC, SEC Charges Four Individuals in Crypto Pyramid Scheme that Targeted Spanish-Speaking Communities (Dec. 14, 2023), https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2022-227 (announcing the SEC alleging defendants created and promoted “a fraudulent crypto asset pyramid scheme that raised more than $8.4 million from hundreds of retail investors primarily from Spanish-speaking communities . . .”); Press Release, SEC, SEC Charges Samuel Bankman-Fried with Defrauding Investors in Crypto Asset Trading Platform FTX (Dec. 13, 2022), https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2022-219 (“SEC Charges Samuel Bankman-Fried”) (announcing the SEC alleging Samuel Bankman-Fried orchestrated scheme to defraud investors in FTX crypto trading platform and misappropriated FTX customer funds for lavish real estate purchases and other personal purchases). [24] See, e.g., David Yaffe-Bellany, Embattled Crypto Exchange FTX Files for Bankruptcy, N.Y. Times (Nov. 11, 2022), https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/11/business/ftx-bankruptcy.html; Hamza Shaban, Crypto Broker Voyager Digital Files for Bankruptcy as Industry Falters, Wash. Post (July 6, 2022, 12:33 PM), https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/07/06/voyager-bankruptcy-three-arrows/; Mackenzie Sigalos, Voyager Customer Lost $1 Million Saved Over 24 Years and Is One of Many Now Desperate to Recoup Funds, CNBC (Aug. 15, 2022, 3:45 PM), https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/15/voyager-customers-beg-new-york-judge-for-money-back-after-bankruptcy.html. [25] See, e.g., Press Release, SEC, SEC Charges Crypto Trading Platform Beaxy and its Executives for Operating an Unregistered Exchange, Broker, and Clearing Agency (Mar. 29, 2023), https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2023-64 [hereinafter SEC Charges Beaxy] (announcing the SEC alleging crypto asset trading platform beaxy.com and its executives operated unregistered exchange, clearing agency, and broker). [26] SEC v. LBRY, Inc., 639 F. Supp. 3d 211, 221–22 (D.N.H. 2022) (granting SEC summary judgment on grounds that LBRY offered blockchain token LBC as a security); SEC v. Kik Interactive Inc., 492 F. Supp. 3d 169, 174, 182–84 (S.D.N.Y. 2020) (granting SEC summary judgment on grounds that Kik offered digital currency Kin as a security); SEC v. Telegram Group Inc., 448 F. Supp. 3d 352, 359 (S.D.N.Y. 2020) (finding SEC has shown substantial likelihood of success on motion for preliminary injunction); SEC v. Blockvest, LLC, 18-CV-2287-GPB(BLM), 2019 WL 625163, at *9, *11 (S.D. Cal. Feb. 14, 2019) (same). See also United States v. Zaslavskiy, 17-CR-647, 2018 WL 4346339, at *7, *9 (E.D.N.Y. Sept. 11, 2018) (denying criminal defendant’s motion to dismiss indictment on the grounds that virtual currencies did not constitute securities).  [27] See SEC Report of Investigation Pursuant to Section 21(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934: The DAO, Exchange Act Release No. 81207, 117 SEC Docket 745 (July 25, 2017) [hereinafter DAO Report] (finding that tokens offered and sold by a “virtual” organization known as “The DAO” were securities and therefore subject to the federal securities laws) (citing SEC v. Edwards, 540 U.S. 389, 393 (2004); SEC v. W.J. Howey Co., 328 U.S. 293, 301 (1946); United Housing Found., Inc. v. Forman, 421 U.S. 837, 852–53 (1975); Tcherepnin v. Knight, 389 U.S. 332, 336 (1967)); Munchee Inc., Securities Act Release No. 10445, 118 SEC Docket 975, 979 (Dec. 11, 2017) (“As the Commission discussed in the DAO Report, tokens, coins or other digital assets issued on a blockchain may be securities under the federal securities laws, and, if they are securities, issuers and others who offer or sell them in the United States must register the offering and sale with the Commission or qualify for an exemption from registration.”); Strategic Hub for Innovation and Financial Technology (FinHub), Framework for Investment Contract Analysis of Digital Assets, SEC, (Apr. 3, 2019), https://www.sec.gov/corpfin/framework-investment-contract-analysis-digital-assets. [28] Gary Gensler, Chair, SEC, SEC Speaks: Kennedy and Crypto (Sept. 8, 2022), https://www.sec.gov/news/speech/gensler-sec-speaks-090822 [hereinafter Gensler, Kennedy and Crypto] [29] LBRY, 639 F. Supp. 3d at 221–22 (granting summary judgment for SEC and rejecting fair notice defense, explaining that “[t]he SEC has not based its enforcement action here on a novel interpretation of a rule that by its terms does not expressly prohibit the relevant conduct. Instead, the SEC has based its claim on a straightforward application of a venerable Supreme Court precedent that has been applied by hundreds of federal courts across the country over more than 70 years.”); Kik Interactive Inc., 492 F. Supp. 3d at 183; Zaslavskiy, 2018 WL 4346669, at *9. [30] See Today’s Cryptocurrency Prices by Market Cap, CoinMarketCap, www.coinmarketcap.com (demonstrating the vast number of cryptocurrency available and its complexity). [31] See SEC Charges Beaxy, supra note 25. [32] See SEC Charges Samuel Bankman-Fried, supra note 23. [33] See Exchange Act, 15 U.S.C. § 78o. [34] See 17 C.F.R. § 240.13a-15. [35] See Gensler, Kennedy and Crypto supra note 28. [36] See, e.g., Gurbir S. Grewal, Dir., Div. of Enforcement, SEC, Remarks at SEC Speaks 2021 (Oct. 13, 2021), https://www.sec.gov/news/speech/grewal-sec-speaks-101321. [37] See Charisse Jones & Jessica Menton, Black, Latino, LGBTQ investors see crypto investments like bitcoin as ‘a new path’ to wealth and equity, USA Today (Aug. 15, 2021) https://www.yahoo.com/now/black-latino-lgbtq-investors-see-100412051.html (citing a 2021 Harris Poll for USA Today). [38] See, e.g., SEC Halts Crypto Asset-Related Fraud Victimizing Latino Investors, SEC Litigation Release No. 25547 (Oct. 3, 2022), https://www.sec.gov/litigation/litreleases/lr-25547 (explaining that the SEC obtained emergency relief in an action alleging that defendant held paid classes for the ostensible purpose of educating and empowering the Latino community to build wealth through crypto asset trading, but was running a Ponzi scheme that raised over $12 million from more than 5,000 investors). [39] See, e.g., Gurbir S. Grewal, Dir., Div. of Enforcement, SEC, Remarks at PLI Broker/Dealer Regulation and Enforcement 2021 (Oct. 6, 2021), https://www.sec.gov/news/speech/grewal-pli-broker-dealer-regulation-and-enforcement-100621. [40] See, e.g., supra note 38 and accompanying text. [41] See, e.g., Tonantzin Carmona, Debunking the Narratives About Cryptocurrency and Financial Inclusion, Brookings (Oct. 6, 2022), https://www.brookings.edu/articles/debunking-the-narratives-about-cryptocurrency-and-financial-inclusion/ (“[C]rypto may offer access to financial services (according to the industry’s narratives), but with the caveats of high risks and insufficient consumer protections.”); see also Alex Fredman & Todd Phillips, Claims That Crypto Bolsters Financial Inclusion Are Dubious, Ctr. for Am. Progress (Mar. 25, 2022), https://www.americanprogress.org/article/claims-that-crypto-bolsters-financial-inclusion-are-dubious/ (noting that advocates’ claims that cryptocurrencies improve access to financial services lack evidence). [42] Much like the persona assumed by Tom Waits in his 1976 song “Step Right Up,” crypto proponents often put forward a list of the life-altering benefits that crypto provides. Tom Waits, Step Right Up, on Small Change (Asylum Records 1976). See, e.g., Complaint, SEC v. Chandran, No. 23-cv-10017 (E.D. Mich. 2023) (discussing how the SEC is alleging that the defendants “creat[ed] and publiciz[ed] astronomical payout scales that ranged from multi-million dollar returns for investments of $1,000 or less, to returns in excess of $50 billion for investments of $100,000.”). [43] See, e.g., Press Release, SEC, SEC Charges Crypto Entrepreneur Justin Sun and his Companies for Fraud and Other Securities Law Violation (Mar. 22, 2023) (settled orders against some parties), https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2023-59 (alleging that celebrities Lindsay Lohan, Jake Paul, DeAndre Cortez Way (Soulja Boy), Austin Mahone, Michele Mason (Kendra Lust), Miles Parks McCollum (Lil Yachty), Shaffer Smith (Ne-Yo), and Aliaune Thiam (Akon) illegally touted crypto asset securities Tronix (TRX) and BitTorrent (BTT) without disclosing that they were compensated for doing so); Press Release, SEC, SEC Charges NBA Hall of Famer Paul Pierce for Unlawfully Touting and Making Misleading Statements about Crypto Security (Feb. 17, 2023) (settled order), https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2023-34; Press Release, SEC, SEC Charges Kim Kardashian for Unlawfully Touting Crypto Security (Oct. 3, 2022) (settled order), https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2022-183. [44] See, e.g., Paul Anthony Pierce, Securities Act Release No. 11157, Administrative Proceeding File No. 3-2130 (Feb. 17, 2023) (settled order) (finding that Pierce tweeted misleading statements related to EMAX tokens, which he was paid to promote, including tweeting a screenshot of an account showing large holdings and profits without disclosing that his own personal holdings were in fact much lower than those in the screenshot). [45] See, e.g., Why the crypto crash hit black Americans hard, The Economist (May 20, 2022), https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2022/05/20/why-the-crypto-crash-hit-black-americans-hard. [46] See, e.g., id.; see also Adrian Ma, The promise and peril of crypto for Black investors, NPR (June 28, 2022), https://www.npr.org/2022/06/28/1108413738/the-promise-and-peril-of-crypto-for-black-investors; Paulina Cachero, Crypto Collapse Threatens to Leave Black, Hispanic Investors Further Behind, Bloomberg (July 7, 2022), https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-07-07/crypto-collapse-threatens-to-leave-black-hispanic-investors-further-behind. [47] See, e.g., Jacquelyn Melinek, Top crypto app downloads rise over 15% following SVB collapse, TechCrunch (Mar. 16, 2023), https://techcrunch.com/2023/03/16/top-crypto-app-downloads-rise-over-15-following-svb-collapse/. [48] See supra note 3 and accompanying text. [49] Global Live Cryptocurrency Charts & Market Data, CoinMarketCap, https://coinmarketcap.com/charts/ (last visited March 2, 2024). [50] Id. The market capitalization of crypto assets was around $200 billion in November 2019. [51] See, e.g., Ari Levy & MacKenzie Sigalos, Crypto peaked a year ago — investors have lost more than $2 trillion since, CNBC (Nov. 11, 2022), www.cnbc.com/2022/11/11/crypto-peaked-in-nov-2021-investors-lost-more-than-2-trillion-since.html; Crypto’s string of bankruptcies, Reuters (Jan. 20, 2023), www.reuters.com/business/finance/cryptos-string-bankruptcies-2023-01-20/. [52] See, e.g., supra note 49. [53] Investor Complaints Data Archive, SEC (Feb. 22, 2024), https://www.sec.gov/data/investor-complaints-data-archive. [54] Investor Complaints and Questions, SEC (Feb. 20, 2024), https://www.sec.gov/data/investor-complaints-data. [55] Michelle Faverio & Olivia Sidoti, Majority of Americans aren’t confident in the safety and reliability of cryptocurrency, Pew Rsch. Ctr. (Apr. 10, 2023), www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/10/majority-of-americans-arent-confident-in-the-safety-and-reliability-of-cryptocurrency/ (“Roughly three-in-ten adults (31%) who have ever invested in, traded or used cryptocurrency say they currently do not have any cryptocurrency.”). [56] Id. (“Those who live in lower-income households (43%) are more likely than those in middle- (30%) or upper-income (21%) households to have given up cryptocurrency.”) [57] See, e.g., supra note 49. [58] “Among the vast majority of Americans who say they have heard at least a little about cryptocurrency (88%), three-quarters say they are not confident that current ways to invest in, trade or use cryptocurrencies are reliable and safe, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted March 13-19.” Supra note 55. [59] See Press Release, SEC, SEC Files 13 Charges Against Binance Entities and Founder Changpeng Zhao (June 5, 2023), www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2023-101. [60] Underscoring the risks presented by the violations charged in the SEC’s complaint, in November 2023, Binance pleaded guilty to criminal charges for failing to maintain an effective anti-money laundering program, conducting an unlicensed money transmitting business, and violating sanctions laws. Binance agreed to pay over $4 billion to resolve the Justice Department’s charges. Its founder Changpeng Zhao also pleaded guilty to failing to maintain an effective anti-money laundering program. See Press Release, DOJ, Binance and CEO Plead Guilty to Federal Charges in $4B Resolution (Nov. 21, 2023), www.justice.gov/opa/pr/binance-and-ceo-plead-guilty-federal-charges-4b-resolution. [61] See Press Release, SEC, SEC Charges Coinbase for Operating as an Unregistered Securities Exchange, Broker, and Clearing Agency (June 6, 2023), www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2023-102. [62] Both matters were being actively litigated in United States District Courts at the time this article was submitted for publication. [63] See Press Release, SEC, SEC Charges LA-Based Media and Entertainment Co. Impact Theory for Unregistered Offering of NFTs (Aug. 28, 2023) (settled order), www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2023-163; See Press Release, SEC, SEC Charges Creator of Stoner Cats Web Series for Unregistered Offering of NFTs (Sept. 13, 2023) (settled order), www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2023-178. [64] See Press Release, SEC, BarnBridge DAO Agrees to Stop Unregistered Offer and Sale of Structured Finance Crypto Product (Dec. 22, 2023) (settled order), www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2023-258. [65] See Press Release, SEC, SEC Charges Founder of $1.7 Billion “HyperFund” Crypto Pyramid Scheme and Top Promoter with Fraud (Jan. 29, 2024), www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2024-11. [66] See SEC v. Coinbase, Inc., No. 23-cv-04738-KPF, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 56994, at *41-42 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 27, 2024) (“the Court finds that the instant enforcement action does not implicate the major questions doctrine”); SEC v. Wahi, No. 2:22-cv-01009-TL, 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 36788, at *21 (W.D. Wash. Mar. 1, 2024) (holding that, “under Howey, all of the crypto assets that Ramani purchased and traded were investment contracts,” including to the extent that the assets were traded on the secondary market); SEC v. Terraform Labs Pte. Ltd., No. 23-cv-1346-JSR, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 230518, at *43 (S.D.N.Y. Dec. 28, 2023) (stating that “Howey’s definition of ‘investment contract’ was and remains a binding statement of the law, not dicta” and finding that “[t]here is no genuine dispute that the elements of the Howey test – ‘(i) investment of money (ii) in a common enterprise (iii) with profits to be derived solely from the efforts of others’ [ ] have been met for UST, LUNA, wLUNA, and MIR [the crypto assets at issue]”); SEC v. Ripple Labs, Inc., 682 F.Supp.3d 308, 322 (S.D.N.Y. 2023) (rejecting defendants’ argument that, in addition to satisfying the Howey test, all investment contracts must contain certain additional "essential ingredients" and finding that Ripple’s institutional sales of its XRP crypto token constituted the unregistered offer and sale of investment contracts and therefore securities); SEC v. Terraform Labs Pte. Ltd., No. 23-cv-1346 (JSR), 2023 WL 4858299, at *7–9 (S.D.N.Y. July 31, 2023) (rejecting argument that the Major Questions Doctrine “prevent[s] the SEC from alleging the company's digital assets to be ‘investment contracts’” and explaining that “Defendants cannot wield a doctrine intended to be applied in exceptional circumstances as a tool to disrupt the routine work that Congress expected the SEC and other administrative agencies to perform.”). [67] See Statement, SEC, “Statement on Jury’s Verdict in Trial of Terraform Labs PTE Ltd. and Do Kwon” (April 5, 2024), available at https://www.sec.gov/news/statement/grewal-statement-040424. [68] See Press Release, SEC, “Terraform and Kwon to Pay $4.5 Billion Following Fraud Verdict” (June 13, 2024), available at https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2024-73. As part of the settlement, Terraform agreed to pay $3,586,875,883 in disgorgement, $466,952,423 in prejudgment interest, and a $420,000,000 civil penalty. Terraform also agreed to stop selling its crypto asset securities, wind down its operations, replace two of its directors, and distribute its remaining assets to investor victims and creditors through a liquidation plan, subject to approval by the court in Terraform’s pending bankruptcy case. Kwon agreed to pay $110,000,000 in disgorgement and $14,320,196 in prejudgment interest on a joint and several basis with Terraform, as well as an $80,000,000 civil penalty.

Acting Comptroller of the Currency Michael J. Hsu today discussed ways banks can assist their customers in avoiding fraud and scams in remarks during the Financial Literacy and Education Commission’s Public Meeting. In his written remarks, Mr. Hsu acknowledged the range of frauds and scams that result in significant annual losses to consumers and businesses. He further discussed efforts banks can take to inform their customers about scams and to implement strong controls to build and maintain consumer trust. Related Link Acting Comptroller Michael J. Hsu remarks (PDF)

Severe weather conditions near the Cape of Good Hope has brought container traffic to a halt this week according to analysis by LSEG Shipping Research. Since Monday 8th July, daily transit data and vessel location data via the LSEG Workspace Interactive Map show no containerships passing the Cape of Good Hope – adding to congestion and delays exacerbated by the Red Sea crisis. The Interactive Map layer shows marine weather and waves over 10m high. Fabrice Maille, Global Head of Shipping & Agriculture at LSEG, comments: "We have a complete stop at the Cape of Good Hope for containerships – east and west. There is no significant change in Red Sea traffic so far, but several containerships have made turnarounds and/or are waiting off the coast of Durban.” Isaac Hankes, Senior Weather Analyst, at LSEG noted that the waves off the South Africa coast coincided with a strong cyclone that impacted the region on the last Sunday, and it was associated with temperatures that were well below normal. He comments: “This was a powerful cyclone (with winds that generated the waves), but we are not seeing anything extraordinary in the data. Something comparable happened in early June, for example. These events are like a cold air outbreak in the South Africa winter, in the Northern Hemisphere context.” He also added: “There is another cyclone likely to impact South Africa later this week, so the issue with the waves may continue yet with respect to shipping issues. However, the AAO will soon move into its positive phase, which could signal the end of strong cyclones after the one later this week.” These precedents support LSEG Commodities' recent forecast that showcased a possibly record-breaking Atlantic hurricane season this year, which is following the expected pattern after the effects of Beryl as an exceptionally strong storm for this time of the year.

Huw Pill Chief Economist and Executive Director, Monetary Analysis   Remarks Thanks very much to our hosts at Asia House today. It is a great pleasure to be here and have the opportunity to discuss the outlook for UK monetary policy with such a distinguished group. Transformation The monetary policy function at the Bank of England has recently been the subject of a review by ex-Federal Reserve Chair (and Nobel laureate in economics) Ben Bernanke. The results of this review were published as Forecasting for monetary policy making and communication at the Bank of England. The recommendations embodied in this review point to a need for reform: both in how the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) operates, and in the support provided to the Committee by Bank of England staff. Such change is entailed by a need to respond to the challenges posed by structural changes to the economy. Among these changes number (inter alia): the global financial crisis; the Covid-19 pandemic; the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and its impact on international energy and food prices; events in the Middle East; climate change; and the technological possibilities and threats of artificial intelligence. (The list could go on.) Strategy - Piecemeal change to the existing policy framework is no longer sufficient to address emerging new challenges. A comprehensive approach that internalises the spillovers among data analyses, macroeconomic forecasting, interest rate choices and policy communication is required. ‘The whole is greater than the sum of the parts’. We need to be conscious of how all these elements fit together. In our internal discussions at the Bank of England, we have often used the metaphor of a single thread hanging off an expensive sweater. It is tempting to pull on that hanging thread to restore the pristine appearance of the sweater. And sometimes such an approach works. But the danger exists that pulling on the single thread leads to a wider unravelling of the cloth. In the extreme, the whole garment might disintegrate in our hands. This metaphor cautions against making cosmetically appealing short-term changes to the policymaking framework, for fear that they may have wider and deeper side effects over time that go well beyond what had originally been envisaged. The UK monetary policymaking framework may have run that risk in the past – and paid the penalty on occasion. Developing a better understanding of how policy measures and choices interact with one another – of the structural relationships among them, to use the economic jargon – is the only way of managing this risk. Change - Any new monetary policy strategy for the UK also needs to embody a judicious mix of the old and the new. It would obviously be ill-advised to discard those elements of the existing policy framework that have performed well in recent challenging times. Among these I would list many of the basic institutional features of the UK system: an independent MPC; a price stability mandate for monetary policy established in legislation; operationalisation of that mandate in the form of a quantified target for inflation; and accountability of MPC members to Parliament. Retaining these elements is key: ‘we don’t want to throw the baby out with the bath water’. As reflected in last month’s valedictory speech of my sadly now former colleague (indeed former boss) Ben Broadbent – and also in last Monday evening’s valedictory of my equally sadly soon-to-be-former colleague (but not boss) Jonathan Haskel – this institutional framework has proved central to the considerable improvement in UK monetary policy performance over recent decades. These two eminent economists both provide compelling evidence that the contrast between: (1) on the one hand, the prompt return of UK inflation to target following the significant external impulses generated by Covid and the invasion of Ukraine; and (2) on the other hand, the higher and much more persistent profile of UK inflation following the 1970s oil price shocks, owes much to these institutional improvements. But equally, while retaining these benefits of institutional innovations associated with the adoption of inflation targeting, we also need to recognise the need for changes to the strategy in the face of changes in context and circumstance. And we must be open to learning from the experience and guidance of others. Together with members of the Bank of England’s modelling team, I was privileged to spend time last week with my former colleagues at the European Central Bank in Frankfurt. We drew valuable lessons from their experiences and expertise. A few weeks ago, the Centre for Central Banking Studies at the Bank of England hosted a workshop for central bank chief economists at which Prof. Bernanke very generously offered views on his recent report, triggering a rich discussion of the strategic challenges facing macroeconomic forecasting and monetary policy. Not only do such events offer an opportunity for mutually beneficial exchanges of views and ventilation of ideas within the central banking community, but also – in those areas where Prof. Bernanke has identified that the Bank of England has work to do – they allow us to draw on the experience of others, avoid the pitfalls of implementing incremental changes to the framework, short circuit the costly process of learning-by-doing, and leapfrog directly to more modern methods. Patience - All these efforts take time. There is a premium on having the patience to ensure that multiple difficult, interrelated and therefore complex decisions are taken correctly. I have spoken in the past of the need to ‘get the basics right’ in reforming the MPC’s monetary policy strategy. Our external audiences will inevitably focus on the visible aspects of the strategy that are central to policy communication. But these may be among the last to change in response to the recommendations of Prof. Bernanke’s review: the form of policy presentation should follow the substance of policy formulation, not lead it. A good decision is easier to communicate and rationalise than a poor decision. Expending effort on cosmetic issues at the expense of getting the fundamental analyses and decision processes right is to have ‘the tail wagging the dog’. All this implies a natural sequencing of reform efforts: start by getting the enabling and foundational aspects of data collection and management right; then develop the models and frameworks to analyse the data; move on to designing the processes required to ensure policy makers are presented with the analysis in a manner and according to a schedule that maximises the likelihood they will take the best decision; assess how those policy decisions and their rationale should be presented to external stakeholders, including financial market participants, the media and the general public; and finally design a mechanism to collect feedback, so the impact of those decisions and their communication can be assessed. But in practice all these efforts will proceed – and indeed are already proceeding – in parallel. Making them consistent is a significant organisational challenge. And, of course, we are not starting from scratch. To illustrate, today the Bank of England is publishing its annual Outreach ReportOpens in a new window , which describes the role and impact of the Bank’s various outreach programmes in facilitating conversations with our various communities: the Citizens Panel, the Youth Forum and the Community Panels. Over the past couple of years, I have been closely involved in this important work, which entails both collecting information and perspectives from our stakeholders – notably about the effects of persistently higher energy prices on UK households’ cost-of-living – as well as offering opportunities to present the sometimes difficult rationale for monetary policy decisions to hard-to-reach audiences. These efforts embody both data collection and policy communication – and, as such, they do not easily fit within the sequencing that would be followed if designing the new monetary policy strategy involved starting with a blank piece of paper, completely from scratch. Conjuncture For all the emphasis I have placed on the renewal of the MPC monetary policy strategy, the MPC must also conduct monetary policy today. This brings me to the current monetary policy conjuncture. As I am sure you all well know, the MPC voted to leave Bank Rate unchanged at 5¼% at its last meeting in June. Of course, it is welcome news that the MPC’s target variable – headline UK CPI inflation – has returned to the 2% target in May. But the MPC’s remit makes clear that the inflation target holds at all times. It is not enough to meet the target in a transitory or fleeting way. Rather the MPC must achieve the inflation target on a lasting and sustainable basis. Given the famous long and variable lags in monetary policy transmission, this requires that the MPC adopt a medium-term orientation and forward-looking approach in its formulation of monetary policy. That naturally points in the direction of placing an inflation forecast close to the centre of its policy discussion, as has indeed been the case for many years. But when forecasting inflation becomes difficult – as has proved to be the case at the Bank of England and elsewhere over the past decade – an approach that places the inflation forecast at the centre of its policy framework comes under stress. That has been recognised in one of the key recommendations made by Prof. Bernanke in his view – to downplay the role of the MPC’s baseline inflation forecast in the discussion and presentation of its policy decisions. Of course, if one analytical tool is to be downplayed, there must be other tools upon which to place greater reliance. Prof. Bernanke has emphasised the role to be played by scenarios and policy simulations. As an intermediate and pragmatic step to address the difficulties with forecasting in the face of the profound structural shocks to the UK economy, in recent years the MPC has emphasised that it is focused on the persistent component of overall inflation, since it is this component which – by nature – will still be embodied in price developments at the horizon where monetary policy decisions taken today have their greatest impact on inflation. In so doing, the MPC maintains its necessarily medium-term and forward-looking orientation. More specifically, the MPC has emphasised three key indicators of inflation persistence: labour market tightness; pay growth; and services price inflation. On the basis of recent outturns, at the margin recent developments in these indicators have hinted towards some upside risk to my assessment of inflation persistence. But these are noisy data series. More generally, the MPC has long recognised that it is difficult to distinguish the signal about underlying persistent inflation dynamics from the inevitable noise in any one release when assessing the news in the month-to-month data flow. Viewed through this lens, it is hard to dispute the case that inflation persistence in the UK continues to prove – well – persistent. That is perhaps to be expected. The difficulty in extracting signals about changes in the low frequency persistent component of inflation from noisy higher frequency indicators has not disappeared. Nor is it likely to in the coming months. More data will come before we take our next policy decision at the MPC meeting on 1 August. But we have to be realistic about how much any one or two releases can add to our assessment. While the MPC must remain open to the possibility that compelling new evidence could emerge which would lead the Committee (or individual members of it) to a revised opinion, it should also remain cautious in seeing any single data as either a necessary or sufficient trigger for that re-assessment. In parallel with these various kinks in the data flow, time is also passing. And with monetary policy in restrictive territory, the extent to which the MPC is bearing down on underlying inflation also has a time dimension. The total quantum of monetary policy restriction is partly determined by the length of time that Bank Rate is held at a restrictive level. So the MPC’s interpretation of the data needs to be placed against an assessment of how restrictive the overall stance of monetary policy is and has been, as well as a view on how that restriction is being transmitted to price developments. It is easy to get frustrated with this. But it is important that the MPC maintains the right strategic orientation – and remains true to the framework it has articulated to deal with current challenges. Unless we have reason to shift to a new framework for policy discussions, there is a premium on acting consistently within our established machinery. It takes a framework to beat a framework. The challenges associated with forecasting notwithstanding, the MPC continues to make substantial progress. The current restrictive monetary policy stance continues to bear down on the persistent component of UK inflation. The MPC needs to ensure that the degree of cumulative restriction in the monetary policy stance is sufficient to ensure that the persistent dynamic in recent inflation indicators is squeezed out of the system in a way that is consistent with a timely and sustained return of CPI inflation to the 2% target. At annual rates still not far from 6%, annual services price inflation and wage growth continue to point to an uncomfortable strength in those underlying inflation dynamics. But the latest data also remains consistent with the view that these inflationary pressures have now been contained, and may be starting to revert towards levels that are more consistent with the achievement of the inflation target. The challenge for the MPC is to get the balance right: enough monetary policy restriction to achieve the inflation target, but neither too much nor too little for fear of destabilising the economy. ‘Twas ever thus. Until the transformation agenda in response to the Bernanke review bears fruit, what complicates matters is how the outlook for inflation persistence stemming from analysis of the evolution of our three ‘key indicators’ can be reconciled with the MPC’s macroeconomic forecast – and, in particular, the inflation outlook at the policy-relevant two- to three-year horizon. The MPC’s judgements around inflation persistence are crucial to determining the shape and profile of the inflation forecast at that horizon. Notwithstanding Prof. Bernanke’s recommendation to downplay the baseline inflation forecast, in the meantime being clear about the character of these judgements about inflation persistence and how their evolution informs the MPC’s inflation forecast remains important. Behind the MPC’s inflation persistence judgement lies a structural view of price and wage setting behaviour in the UK economy. We don’t simply need to observe developments in the key indicators, but rather we need to explain – both to ourselves and to our various external audiences – why there is greater persistence in current inflation dynamics than our standard model framework would imply, even after we have taken account of the extent of slack in the economy. Based on that view, I will propose a few potential ways to interpret the inflation persistence judgements embedded in the forecast. On one view, these judgements could reflect decaying second round effects in price and wage inflation following the big external shocks associated with the pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Those effects may take longer to decay than any second-round effects embodied in conventional models and frameworks, but they are not fundamentally different – it is simply a question of the half-life of those second-round effects just being somewhat longer. In this case, the challenge for the MPC is to decide whether to let this greater persistence play out or to act to bring inflation down more quickly while accepting the cost in terms of activity and employment that this implies. In other words, the MPC faces a traditional ‘trade-off’ situation. On another view, the inflation persistence judgments could represent a more permanent change to price, wage and margin setting behaviour, perhaps associated with changes in the pay structure, different competitive dynamics in the markets for labour, product and services, or with high degrees of real income resistance. For any given level of slack in the economy, the momentum of nominal dynamics in price / wage / cost / margin setting behaviour may simply be stronger. In that scenario, ultimately the MPC will be left with no choice but to maintain a restrictive monetary policy to weigh against such incipient stronger inflationary dynamics for the 2% inflation target is to be achieved on a lasting basis. That is the Committee’s mandate. Viewed through his lens, the persistence judgements represent a deterioration in the supply side of the UK economy: they capture an under-estimation of the NAIRU (or equivalently an over-estimation of potential output). It is apparent from this discussion that the character of inflation persistence has implications for the conduct of monetary policy. When drawing implications from the evolution of the ‘key indicators of inflation persistence’ for the MPC’s monetary policy assessment, it is important to address what those indicators tell us about the nature of inflation persistence. This goes beyond a quantitative mapping from those indicators into an inflation forecast. A more structural interpretation of inflation persistence is required. And further work is needed to provide this. In particular, separating households’ inflation perceptions from households’ and firms’ short-term inflation expectations – and then seeking to separate both from inflation itself – remains a difficult empirical challenge. Distinguishing ‘catch-up dynamics’, which might be expected to dissipate over time (even if relatively slowly), from ‘de-anchoring dynamics’ that might have a more long-lasting character and represent a deterioration on the supply side, remains key. This all said, in the absence of any big new shocks, the “when-rather-than-if” characterisation of prospective Bank Rate cuts still seems appropriate. The views expressed in these remarks are not necessarily those of the Bank of England or the Monetary Policy Committee. I would particularly like to thank Saba Alam and Iris Hall for their help in the preparation of these remarks. The text has also benefitted from helpful comments from Andrew Bailey, Jamie Bell, Sarah Breeden, Fabrizio Cadamagnani, Alan Castle, Clare Lombardelli, Jonathan Haskel, Rich Harrison, Adrian Paul, Kate Reinold, Fergal Shortall and Danny Walker for which I am most grateful. Opinions (and all remaining errors and omissions) are my own.

Afua Kyei Executive Director, Finance Afua Kyei, Chief Financial Officer at the Bank of England was honoured as the top female and number 2 overall on the Empower Global Executives Role Model List 2024, supported by YouTube. The list celebrates ethnically diverse Executives across the globe, who are driving impactful and innovative work for inclusion in business. Afua shares key highlights of her personal journey and discusses her role at the Bank of England as Chief Financial Officer and co-Executive sponsor for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.  Speech Introduction The reason I wanted to speak today is because I believe Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) are absolutely vital. We need to work out how to bring out the best in each other, so that we can keep moving society forward. I have been the Chief Financial Officer of the Bank of England for the last 5 years. It has been an honour to serve the UK during Covid, Brexit, the cost of living crisis, and against a challenging geopolitical backdrop. During this time, I have had my hands full with the Bank of England’s balance sheet, which grew to over £1 trillion during the pandemic. Personal journey I have spent the last twenty years in financial services…but that was never the plan! I was born in London, and my family lived in Highgate at the time. We moved progressively South to Wimbledon and then to Purley, where I grew up. My parents worked hard and inspired me to work hard. My Dad was awarded a scholarship by the Government of Ghana to study in the UK after coming 3rd in West Africa for his A-Levels. He came to study engineering at the Camborne School of Mines. My Mum, totally separately, came from Ghana to the UK when she was 18, to study midwifery at Liverpool University. She went on to work for the NHS for 40 years, and I saw her juggle long shifts, while raising a family. From the age of 7, I had my heart set on being a doctor, so that I could help people. I went to Old Palace, a fantastic all girls school, in Croydon, where I had the most incredible headmistress, Miss Hilton. She believed in me, and that went a long way. I read Chemistry at Oxford University, because I wanted to help create a drug to help people with cancer. My Masters focused on creating molecules with anti-tumorous properties. At Oxford, I was inspired by the late, great Professor Sir Jack Baldwin – he was one of the most eminent British Chemists of our time. He believed in me, and he chose me to be part of his research group. I then got a junior research fellowship at Princeton University. After some time working in the labs, behind a fumehood, I experienced some of the highs of research, as I created lots of new compounds, and my work was published in an international journal. But, I started to realise that I wanted to work in a more fast-paced and more socially interactive environment. I wanted to use my creative and experimentation skills to solve problems. And, in the background, I had a part-time job working in fashion at Burberry in London to pay my student debt. We had a lot of well known customers coming through our doors, and the fashion world gave me an alternative to wearing a white lab coat and goggles to work every day! Fast forward, I trained as a Chartered Accountant at Ernst & Young in London. I became an Investment Banker at UBS, and during the global financial crisis, I travelled around the world doing M&A deals. Then I did different CFO roles at Barclays. When I was on maternity leave, I was approached about becoming the CFO of the Bank of England. And as they say, the rest is history. When I joined the Bank, I was the youngest Executive Director. I was 36, which makes me a millennial (just about!), and I was also the first black executive in the Bank’s 329 year history. I have learned to balance work and family, as I have 4 young children ranging from a baby to an 8-year old. So I have been busy juggling work and home… As I reflect back over the years, there are some key things that have helped: Firstly, I have been flexible about what I do, and changing direction. This has been a consistent theme. New things come up. New people come up. I like experiencing different things and gravitate towards people I enjoy spending time with, because work needs to be fun! Secondly, having my own sense of inner fulfilment is important. There’s no point in waiting for people to thank you and give you credit for the work you are doing - otherwise, you could be waiting a long time! People are busy, people have other things on their mind, so there’s no point dwelling on things you can’t change. I get satisfaction from doing purposeful work. Thirdly, there will be barriers. Of course there will be. That’s always been my experience. But there will always be key people, who believe in you, and who will help you figure it out during the toughest times. Family, friends, mentors, and sponsors. People who you can lean on to give you support and encouragement. And that’s what I have found has made the difference. How am I helping to drive Diversity and Inclusion across modern business? At the Bank, I’m the co-Executive sponsor of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. I enjoy the social purpose aspect of my role. I do a lot of outreach. I love meeting people from different communities, businesses and charities; people across the public and private sector. I have the opportunity to contribute to different industry discussions at a national level, and to speak at international fora like the G20, and the International Monetary Fund. I try to engage, listen, and share experiences to drive positive change. At the Bank, we have focussed on creating an inclusive culture, where everyone can thrive. Our visible and invisible diversity is what will help us achieve better outcomes for our society. During the pandemic, we made DEI a strategic priority for the Bank, and I was delighted when the Governor, Andrew Bailey, asked me to be the co-Executive sponsor. In 2020, after Black Lives Matter, the Bank of England commissioned a Court Review of Ethnic diversity. We found that outcomes were very different for white and ethnic minority colleagues, and also that we needed to do more to achieve gender equality. I have helped the Bank respond to this, and I will make sure we continue to prioritise this, against a trend of global efforts reducing in this space. Targets We have set formal targets for the recruitment and retention of diverse staff at various levels at the Bank, particularly for women and ethnic minorities. We are tracking progress because what gets measured gets done. At the highest level in the organisation, Court, our board has a good mix of gender and ethnic diversity. And we are working towards meeting our targets at all levels. Diversity alone won’t get us where we want to be: 1. Inclusion matters. 2. Equal pay and career progression matters. 3. Allyship matters. And, finally, to close…. What I would like to see more than anything, is for diverse people to be fully accepted and valued when they are ordinary, not just when they are exceptional…. That’s when we’ll know we are really moving society forward. Thank you Suki Sandhu, and the INvolve team for everything you are doing. And thank you all for listening. I would like to thank my Bank colleagues and chairs of our employee networks, for the vital work they are doing to drive inclusion in the workplace. Also Mohini Gurung and Catherine Milton for proofreading this speech.

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), the EU’s financial markets regulator and supervisor, today issued a public statement on deprioritising supervisory actions linked to the eligibility of uncollateralized public guarantees, public bank guarantees, and commercial bank guarantees for Non-Financial Counterparties (NFCs) acting as clearing members, pending the entry into force of EMIR 3. Read the full Statement here. Related Documents Download All FilesDownload Selected Files DateReferenceTitleDownloadSelect 10/07/2024 ESMA91-1505572268-3857 Public statement on Emergency collateral requirements

Véronique Sani appointed as Secretary General and member of BIS Executive Committee Karmela Holtgreve appointed Deputy Head of the BIS Innovation Hub and Head of Operations Miguel Díaz appointed Deputy Head of the BIS Innovation Hub and Head of Strategy The Board of Directors of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) today announced the appointment of Véronique Sani as Secretary General. Her appointment takes effect on 1 December 2024 and is for a five-year term. Her appointment fills the vacancy created by the retirement of Monica Ellis, who has been Secretary General since 2017. In her new role, Ms Sani will head the General Secretariat, one of the Bank's four main departments. As a member of the Bank's Executive Committee, she will play a key role contributing to the general management of the BIS and will have responsibility for the provision of corporate services within the BIS. Ms Sani is currently President of Advasio Consulting and was most recently Chief Operating Officer of Natixis, the global financial services subsidiary of BPCE, the second largest banking group in France. In this role, she was responsible for the technology, operations, procurement, real estate and transformation strategy globally. She also serves as a board member and senior adviser of various companies. Prior to joining the BPCE group, she spent 16 years at Société Générale in senior leadership positions in India, New York and Paris, holding a number of global roles including Chief Executive Officer of the Global Solutions Centre, Global Head of OTC Derivatives Operations and Global Head of Equity Derivatives Operations. She has a master's degree in finance from HEC Grande École, Paris. Ahead of Ms Ellis's retirement in December 2024, the Board took the opportunity to warmly thank her for her service to the Bank over many years and recognised her dynamic leadership and the key role she played in driving forward core elements of the ambitious Innovation BIS 2025 strategy.       The BIS also announced two new senior leadership appointments in the BIS Innovation Hub. Karmela Holtgreve will be Deputy Head and Head of Operations and Miguel Díaz will be Deputy Head and Head of Strategy. Their appointments reflect the growth of the Innovation Hub, which in its first five years has expanded its global network to seven centres across the globe, fostering collaboration among public and private sector experts to support central banks and improve the functioning of the financial system.   Ms Holtgreve is currently Director General Strategy and Innovation at the Deutsche Bundesbank. In this role, she is responsible for the overall transformation of the Bundesbank and is directly responsible for three main departments: innovation, transformation, and portfolio and strategy. She holds a diploma degree in political science from Goethe University Frankfurt and the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid with a focus on International Relations and European politics. Mr Díaz is currently the Head of the BIS Innovation Hub's Toronto Innovation Centre. In his current role, he is responsible for leading financial innovation projects and developing new technology to improve payments systems and financial market infrastructure.  He was previously Payment Systems and Market Infrastructures General Director at the Bank of Mexico. He holds a PhD in Business Economics from the University of Chicago. BIS Management thanked Ross Leckow for his valuable service as Deputy Head of the Innovation Hub since 2019. Mr Leckow will leave the Bank at the end of August. Background: The portfolio of the General Secretariat department at the BIS includes financial control, information services and management, human resources, real estate and facilities management, meeting services and the Board Secretariat. The BIS Innovation Hub was created in 2019 to develop public goods in the technology space to support central banks and improve the functioning of the financial system. There are currently seven centres around the world and a global network of central bank experts on innovation. The BIS also has a strategic partnership with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Related information Management of the BIS About the BIS Innovation Hub

Introduction Chairwoman Stabenow, Ranking Member Boozman, and members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today as Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC or Agency) to discuss the state of the digital asset commodity market.  Before I begin, I would like to recognize and thank my fellow CFTC Commissioners and CFTC staff for their dedication and commitment to serving the American public. State of the Digital Asset Commodity Market During my almost seven-years at the CFTC as both a Commissioner and as Chairman, I have observed the digital asset market evolve significantly, expanding and collapsing, at times with periods of high volatility.  It has also facilitated countless scandals and fraudulent activity, some very small and typical in criminal form, others massive in scale and profile.  I have watched the market as it has piqued the interest of both novice and sophisticated investors, and have seen some of our nation’s most established financial institutions build businesses driven by digital assets. What has concerned me most throughout the expansion of this digital asset class is that while everyday Americans fall victim to one digital asset scam after another, there remains no completed legislative response.  I have repeatedly been asked by members of Congress what I am doing to protect their constituents.  I believe the single most important thing I have done, and continue to do, is advocate to this body to fill the regulatory gap.  I am not alone in my concerns.  In 2022, a Financial Stability Oversight Council report highlighted that there is a gap in regulation of the spot market for digital assets that are not securities.[1]  This gap for non-security tokens continues to constitute a majority of the digital asset market measured by market capitalization.[2]  Given the risks that this unregulated market poses to U.S. investors, I have consistently and publicly called for new legislative authority for the CFTC,[3] including before this Committee.[4]  Congress must act quickly in order for regulators, like the CFTC, to provide basic customer protections that are core to U.S. financial markets. Further, based on my observations as Chairman, I do not believe inaction will quash public interest for digital assets; it will only result in greater risk to our financial markets and investors.  As the digital asset market continues to integrate into traditional financial institutions, concerns regarding broader market resiliency and perhaps even financial stability will ripen.  In short, our current trajectory is not sustainable.  Federal legislation is urgently needed to create a pathway for a regulatory framework that will protect American investors and possibly the financial system from future risk. Enforcement It has been almost nine years since the CFTC brought its first enforcement action in connection with an illegal Bitcoin operation.[5]  Since that time, the agency has been aggressive in using our powerful, but limited anti-fraud and anti-manipulation authorities.  In total, the CFTC has brought over 135 digital commodity cases resulting in billions in penalties and restitution.  All along, CFTC enforcement staff has worked closely with our civil and criminal law enforcement partners at the federal and state levels.  The escalating rate of digital asset enforcement cases since 2020 mirrors the accelerated and sustained adoption of digital assets by U.S. investors. Just last week, a District Court in the Northern District of Illinois entered summary judgment in favor of the CFTC in a case involving fraud by an unregistered entity that promised steady returns in digital asset commodities such as Bitcoin and Ether.[6]  In its decision, the court re-affirmed that both Bitcoin and Ether are commodities under the Commodity Exchange Act. In fiscal year 2023, actions involving digital asset-related allegations comprised almost half of our enforcement docket.[7]  Of the 47 enforcement actions involving digital assets commodities, 35 alleged misconduct in the spot market.  Ultimately, the CFTC, whose primary responsibility is overseeing the multi-trillion-dollar U.S. derivatives markets, is committing nearly half its enforcement resources to a market it does not have the authority or appropriated resources to regulate. Nearly a decade of digital asset experience has given CFTC staff a deep understanding of the market and underlying technology that supports it.  Market regulators like the CFTC were built precisely for situations we find ourselves in today.  The flawed notion that regulating an asset class legitimizes it misses the point of our responsibilities. International Progress Concurrent with my duties as CFTC Chairman, I have the privilege of serving as the Vice-Chairman of the International Organization of Securities Commissions, more commonly known as IOSCO.  IOSCO’s member agencies regulate more than 95% of the world’s securities markets in over 130 jurisdictions.[8]  In this role, I have observed both major and developing economies establish regulatory frameworks for digital assets.  From Asia, the Middle East, the European Union, the United Kingdom, and South America, what started as pilot programs and draft legislation just a few years ago, has developed into established global regulatory systems. The delta between the U.S. and our international counterparts preserves weaknesses that are exploited by bad actors, and prohibits us from much needed coordination efforts.  Further, and primarily for the members of this Committee to consider, any potential economic benefits and innovation arising from this technology ultimately will be stymied without regulatory certainty. Legislative Priorities to Achieve Success As this Committee continues to consider legislation to fill the regulatory gap, I would like to focus your attention on the components of a framework that would ensure the CFTC has the tools to provide customer and market protections. First, the principles-based oversight model has served the CFTC and its regulated markets well, striking an appropriate balance between clear outcomes-based requirements, and measured flexibility to meet those outcomes.  Core principles such as compliance with fair and orderly trading, system safeguards, financial resource requirements, and products not being readily susceptible to fraud or manipulation, to name just a few, serve as a solid foundation to build transparent and resilient markets, regardless of asset class.  In light of the novel nature of digital assets, the CFTC would then, consistent with a legislative mandate, tailor rules to meet the risk and characteristic profile. Second, appropriate funding is necessary to meet the mandate of any legislatively enacted regulatory program.  A permanent fee-for-service model, exclusively assessed on digital asset registrants, and that is commensurate with the responsibilities outlined in a bill, is critical.  As with other fee-for-service models, congressional appropriators and the agency should work in tandem to set budget levels and subsequently set fees to meet those budget levels. Third, given the retail-oriented nature of the digital asset market, legislative authority for the CFTC to require registrants to provide a comprehensive disclosure regime regarding a commodity token’s structure, purpose, market-based characteristics, and general risks is also critical to ensure investors have access to material information. Fourth, it is essential that legislation provide comprehensive authority for anti-money laundering, know-your-customer, and a customer identification program, built off of existing requirements for market participants. Fifth, given the important role the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) plays in the oversight of security-based digital tokens, the Committee should consider a disciplined, balanced framework for the determination of tokens as commodities or securities under existing law.  The SEC and CFTC have a longstanding partnership that facilitates strong, robust regulation of securities and derivatives markets.  I am confident that the two agencies will continue working closely, ensuring a reliable, fair, and efficient system for listing and trading of digital assets on regulated exchanges. Finally, given the broad adoption of digital assets by a significant portion of the American population,[9] a comprehensive education and outreach program, building off of the CFTC’s Office of Customer Education and Outreach, will enable the investing public to understand both the risks and opportunities of this technology. Conclusion I am encouraged by this Committee’s continued efforts, dating back to 2022, to fill the gap in regulation, prioritizing customer protections and market stability.  In addition to this Committee’s work, there have been other important steps taken in Congress to address the need for comprehensive regulation of the digital asset commodity market.  The principles and regulatory foundations that have made our capital markets and derivatives markets the deepest, most liquid, and most resilient in the world provide an effective model for the digital asset commodity market.  We need to act thoughtfully, but with urgency, to fill this harmful regulatory gap in order to give American investors the protection they deserve. I thank the Committee for your focus in this area, and look forward to answering your questions. [1] Financial Stability Oversight Council, Report on Digital Assets and Financial Stability Risks and Regulation  (Oct. 2022), Report on Digital Asset Financial Stability Risks and Regulation 2022 (treasury.gov).   [2] https://coinmarketcap.com/ [3] See, Rostin Behnam, Chairman, CFTC, Testimony Before U.S. House Committee on Agriculture, https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/SpeechesTestimony/opabehnam42 (Mar. 6. 2024); see also, Rostin Behnam, Chairman, CFTC, Testimony on The Future of Digital Assets: Providing Clarity for Digital Asset Spot Markets Before the U.S. House Committee on Agriculture, https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/SpeechesTestimony/opabehnam42 (Mar. 6. 2023). [4] See, Rostin Behnam, Chairman, CFTC, Testimony Before the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, & Forestry, https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/SpeechesTestimony/opabehnam32 (Mar. 8, 2023). [5] See Press Release Number 7231-15, CFTC, CFTC Orders Bitcoin Options Trading Platform Operator and its CEO to Cease Illegally Offering Bitcoin Options and to Cease Operating a Facility for Trading or Processing of Swaps without Registering (Sept. 16, 2015), CFTC Orders Bitcoin Options Trading Platform Operator and its CEO to Cease Illegally Offering Bitcoin Options and to Cease Operating a Facility for Trading or Processing of Swaps without Registering | CFTC. [6] See Press Release Number 8931-24, CFTC, Federal Court Enters Summary Judgment Against Oregon Man and Orders $83 Million in Restitution for Fraud Victims (July 3, 2024), Federal Court Enters Summary Judgment Against Oregon Man and Orders $83 Million in Restitution for Fraud Victims | CFTC. [7] See Press Release Number 8822-23, CFTC, CFTC Releases FY 2023 Enforcement Results (Nov. 7, 2023), CFTC Releases FY 2023 Enforcement Results | CFTC. [8] International Organization of Securities Commissions, About IOSCO, https://www.iosco.org/v2/about/?subsection=about_iosco (last visited July 8, 2024). [9] Financial Literacy, Risk Tolerance, and Cryptocurrency Ownership in the United States (kansascityfed.org). RELATED LINKS Event: Chairman Behnam to Testify Before the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry

New EDHEC-Risk Climate Impact Institution research:   Extends valuation techniques to estimate the effect on global equity values of climate and economic uncertainties, financial contingencies, transition costs and physical risks. Evaluates the impact on global equity values of different greenhouse gas emissions trajectories under multiple climate and economic scenarios. Identifies aggressiveness of emissions abatement, location of climate tipping points, and ability and willingness of central banks to lower rates during economic distress as key impact factors of equity valuation. Indicates that prompt and robust abatement action is needed to keep losses below 10%. Conversely, over 40% of global equity value is at risk if decarbonisation efforts do not accelerate, with losses exceeding 50% when climate tipping points are factored in.   In a new study, How Does Climate Risk Affect Global Equity Valuations? A Novel Approach, EDHEC-Risk Climate Impact Institute addresses key limitations of current climate-aware valuation approaches to produce novel insights. The paper, conducted within the research chair established by EDHEC Business School and Scientific Beta, reveals that the impact of climate risk on global equity valuation can be significant, especially in scenarios with limited climate action. Key Findings: The uncertainty of climate and economic outcomes and the state dependence of discounting are two key and much neglected contributors to changes in equity valuation. The magnitude of losses depends on the aggressiveness of emission abatement policy; the presence or otherwise of tipping points; on the extent of Central Banks’ willingness and ability to lower rates in states of economic distress. Severe impact on equity valuation can be obtained with very plausible combinations of policies and physical outcomes; and there is considerably more downside than upside risk – over 40% of global equity value is at risk unless decarbonisation efforts accelerate and losses could exceed 50% with near climate tipping points. Prompt and robust abatement action is needed to keep losses below 10%.   Methodological Innovations: Fully Probabilistic Approach: incorporating climate and economic uncertainties into a probabilistic framework for a more realistic and comprehensive evaluation of potential outcomes. State-Dependent Discounting: recognising that physical damages from climate change impair cashflows in a state-dependent manner and allowing discount factors to be determined by economic conditions and damages, which highlights the neglected role of state-dependent discounting. Joint Analysis of Transition Costs and Physical Risks: upgrading a popular integrated climate economics assessment model to estimate the effect of transition costs (associated with regulatory measures to curb greenhouse gas emissions) and physical damages on the value of global equity stock, providing a unified view of climate-related financial risks.   Frédéric Ducoulombier, Director of EDHEC-Risk Climate Impact Institute states: “The research team led by Professor Rebonato has upgraded mainstream integrated assessment models to incorporate the progress of climate science and make them fit for financial applications. By modelling the considerable uncertainty in the physical and economical dimensions of climate change and linking it to top-down equity valuation, this study debunks the notion that the value of financial assets may be immune to climate changes and provides additional support for bold climate action.” Professor Ricardo Rebonato, Scientific Director of EDHEC-Risk Climate Impact Institute, adds: “These results–obtained with mild assumptions–underline the importance of uncertainty and state-dependent discounting for climate-aware equity valuation.  Our approach shows that it is possible and fruitful to integrate climate risks into financial analysis and we will be working further to develop theoretically solid and practically implementable tools for climate-aware investment management.” Download the full paper here: How Does Climate Risk Affect Global Equity Valuations? A Novel Approach

The World Investor Week (WIW) is a week-long, global campaign to raise awareness of the importance of investor education and protection, and to highlight the various initiatives of securities regulators in these two critical areas. WIW has two primary objectives, namely (i) to disseminate key messages that support investor education, investor protection and financial literacy; and (ii) to foster learning opportunities for investors. The campaign also aims to strengthen collaboration among IOSCO members on investor education and protection initiatives. Launching on 7 October 2024 and spanning the course of the week, organizations representing over 100 jurisdictions will come together to drive awareness around trending issues which impact investors around the world. Principal themes include Technology & Digital Finance Crypto Assets Sustainable Finance   These will be complemented with discussions and workshops on Fraud and Scam Prevention Investor Resilience Basics of Investing   Mr. Jean-Paul Servais, Chair of IOSCO’s Board, and Chairman, Financial Services and Markets Authority, Belgium, said: "Last year’s World Investor Week saw the involvement of 118 jurisdictions and reached almost 730 million individuals. We have to keep the ball rolling as with technological advancements and increased use of AI, new challenges arise. We also see how crypto, fractional trading, gamification and copy-trading are trending. I am confident that WIW2024 will build on the success of previous years to drive greater investor awareness of these issues and look forward to contribute to its success.” This year’s themes were agreed by IOSCO’s Committee 8 which conducts its work on retail investor education and financial literacy and includes 38 members from both established and emerging markets. Mr. Pasquale Munafò, Senior Officer, Commissione Nazionale per le Società e la Borsa, Italy, and Chair of IOSCO’s Committee 8, said: “The principal themes we have identified this year result from extensive engagement with all Committee 8 members and unanimously reflect the most urgent issues facing investors today. We also collaborate very closely with other relevant committees to ensure a comprehensive and unified approach to investor protection and education. “By placing the spotlight on these critical areas, we aim to empower and protect investors worldwide, providing them with the knowledge and tools needed to navigate an increasingly complex financial landscape.” As in previous years, WIW2024 will be supported by the Financial Standards Planning Board’s (FSPB) bespoke ‘World Financial Planning Day’ which will take place on 9 October. Additional information, and details of how to participate, can be found at www.worldinvestorweek.org Follow the WIW on Facebook (@worldinvestorweek), Twitter (@ioscowiw) and Instagram (@ioscowiw).

The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), the premier post-trade market infrastructure for the global financial services industry, today announced the launch of a new public-facing Value at Risk (VaR) calculator. The calculator provides market participants with the ability to evaluate potential margin and Clearing Fund obligations associated with becoming a Member of DTCC’s Fixed Income Clearing Corporation (FICC) Government Securities Division (GSD). With U.S. Treasury Clearing activity processed through FICC expected to rise by US$4 trillion daily after the SEC’s expanded clearing mandate is implemented in 2025 and 2026, DTCC’s VaR calculator will be a crucial tool for firms to accurately determine VaR and potential margin obligations for any simulated portfolio. “VaR is a widely used risk management concept in the financial services industry and is the primary component of GSD’s Clearing Fund requirements,” said Tim Hulse, Managing Director, Financial Risk & Governance, at DTCC. “The calculator considers factors such as historical data, volatility and confidence levels to estimate VaR, increasing market transparency.” The new calculator provides market participants with the opportunity to calculate potential Margin obligations on a simulated portfolio, for given positions and market value, using FICC’s VaR methodology. Hulse added, “FICC understands the urgency and importance of evaluating firms’ risk exposure associated with the expansion of U.S. Treasury Clearing. The VaR calculator provides market participants with increased transparency into these obligations.” As part of its commitment to the industry, DTCC continues to assess calculators, tools, and enhanced access methods to support the expansion of U.S. Treasury clearing activity.

Exchanges heavily reliant on cash equities have faced challenging times due to a shortage of listings and low valuations, prompting some firms to reassess their current listings. In contrast, exchanges with a diversified business model have weathered these conditions more successfully. The FTSE Mondo Visione Exchanges Index concluded June at 71,426.00 points, reflecting a 0.4% decline from its May 2024 value of 71,725.78. The top 5 exchanges by market capitalisation at the end of June were: Exchange Market Cap (USD bn)  Intercontinental Exchange  78.50 CME Group 70.78 London Stock Exchange Group   63.64 Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing 40.63 Deutsche Boerse 37.91   FTSE Mondo Visione Exchanges Index And The FTSE All-World Index Performance Since August 17, 2001 (USD Capital Return) Herbie Skeete, Managing Director of Mondo Visione and Co-founder of the Index, said: "Euronext is an exchange worth watching. Their financial discipline in cost control and efficiency improvements has stabilised operations. Although primarily dependent on low-margin equities, Euronext is gradually transitioning back to a more diversified model." In June, South Africa's JSE saw the highest capital returns in U.S. dollars, with a 21.8% increase. Multi Commodity Exchange of India came in second with an 8.2% increase, followed by Tanzania's Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange with a 6.4% increase. The worst performer in June was Brazil's B3 S.A., which experienced a 9.4% decrease. Bolsa Mexicana de Valores SAB de CV followed with a 7.1% decrease and Kenya's Nairobi Securities Exchange with a 5.5% decrease. The FTSE Mondo Visione Exchanges Index fell 2.9% in the second quarter of 2024 after rising 1.4% in the first quarter of 2024 and increasing 0.6% in the second quarter of 2023. In the second quarter of 2024, South Africa's JSE led in capital returns with a 27.6% increase, followed by the U.K.'s Aquis Exchange with a 21.5% increase and Bursa Malaysia with a 19.0% increase. Bolsa Mexicana de Valores SAB de CV was the worst performer in the second quarter, experiencing a 23.9 % decrease. Brazil's B3 S.A. followed with a 23.0% decrease, and Japan Exchange Group with a 14.1% decrease. Looking at the past 12 months, India's BSE, the best performer in the FTSE Mondo Visione Exchanges Index based on capital returns in USD, showed a 317.5% increase. Multi Commodity Exchange of India and the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange were the best performers, with gains of 157.3% and 56.4%, respectively. Brazil's B3 S.A. experienced the worst performance over the past 12 months, with a 39.1% share price decrease. Croatia's Zagrebacka Burza dd and Bolsa Mexicana de Valores SAB de CV followed with declines of 20.2% and 18.2%, respectively. 1 Year Constituent Performance (USD Capital Return) 1 Year Excess Capital Returns Against The FTSE Mondo Visione Exchanges Index (USD Capital Return) 1-Year Performance Chart Of The FTSE Mondo Visione Exchanges Index (USD Capital Return) Download June's performance report by clicking here for more detailed information and quarterly analysis. Monthly FTSE Mondo Visione Exchanges Index Performance (Capital Return, USD) July 2014 3.1% August 2014 2.3% September 2014 -3.6% October 2014 2.8% November 2014 2.5% December 2014 -0.5% January 2015 -1.0% February 2015 8.5% March 2015 0.0% April 2015 10.7% May 2015 0.1% June 2015 -3.2% July 2015 -2.7% August 2015 -5.3% September 2015 -2.1% October 2015 7.6% November 2015 0.4% December 2015 -2.2% January 2016 -4,7% February 2016 -0.7% March 2016 6.7% April 2016 0.4% May 2016 1.8% June 2016 -2.2% July 2016 5.3% August 2016 2.3% September 2016 -1.6% October 2016 -1.6% November 2016 2.1% December 2016 0.1% January 2017 6.0% February 2017 -0.8% March 2017 1.4% April 2017 0.8% May 2017 1.6% June 2017 5.6% July 2017 2.7% August 2017 0.3% September 2017 3.6% October 2017 -0.7% November 2017 6.4% December 2017 -0.7% January 2018 10% February 2018 -0.5% March 2018 -1.6% April 2018 -1.0% May 2018 -1.5% June 2018 -0.8% July 2018 -0.7% August 2018 2.4% September 2018 -1.7% October 2018 1.0% November 2018 3.1% December 2018 -4.2% January 2019 5.4% February 2019 1.7% March 2019 -2.6% April 2019 4.6% May 2019 1.5% June 2019 4.3% July 2019 2.2% August 2019 3.7% September 2019 -0.8% October 2019 2.0% November 2019 -0.5% December 2019 1.6% January 2020 5.0% February 2020 -7.4% March 2020 -11.5% April 2020 8.0% May 2020 6.7% June 2020 2.3% July 2020 6.6% August 2020 4.9% September 2020 -5.2% October 2020 -6.7% November 2020 8.9% December 2020 7.2% January 2021 0.8% February 2021 1.4% March 2021 -2.7% April 2021 3.3% May 2021 2.5% June 2021 0.4% July 2021 0.4% August 2021 0.1% September 2021 -4.2% October 2021 5.9% November 2021 -5.6% December 2021 4.9% January 2022 -2.2% February 2022 -3.5% March 2022 3.5% April 2022 -8.6% May 2022 -5.1% June 2022 -0.7% July 2022 2.4% August 2022 -3.9% September 2022 -8.8% October 2022 -1.1% November 2022 11.5% December 2022 -2.9% January 2023 3.8% February 2023 -4.1% March 2023 5.0% April 2023 0.9% May 2023 -3.9% June 2023 3.8% July 2023 4.6% August 2023 -2.3% September 2023 -3.0% October 2023 -0.6% November 2023 7.7% December 2023 3.8% January 2024 -2.7% February 2024 4.3% March 2024 -0.1% April 2024 -3.8% May 2024 1.3% June 2024 -0.4%   About FTSE Mondo Visione Exchanges Index The FTSE Mondo Visione Exchanges Index, a joint venture between FTSE Group and Mondo Visione, was established in 2000. It is the first Index in the world to focus on listed exchanges and other trading venues. The FTSE Mondo Visione Exchanges Index compares performance of individual exchanges and trading platforms and provides a reliable barometer of the health and performance of the exchange sector. It enables investors to track 33 publicly listed exchanges and trading floors and focuses attention of the market on this important sector. The FTSE Mondo Visione Exchanges Index includes all publicly traded stock exchanges and trading floors: Aquis Exchange Australian Securities Exchange Ltd B3 SA Bolsa de Comercio Santiago Bolsa Mexicana de Valores SA Boursa Kuwait Securities BSE Bulgarian Stock Exchange Bursa de Valori Bucuresti SA Bursa Malaysia Cboe Global Markets CME Group Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange PLC Deutsche Bourse Dubai Financial Market Euronext Hellenic Exchanges SA Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Ltd Intercontinental Exchange Inc Japan Exchange Group, Inc Johannesburg Stock Exchange Ltd London Stock Exchange Group Multi Commodity Exchange of India Nairobi Securities Exchange Nasdaq New Zealand Exchange Ltd Philippine Stock Exchange Saudi Tadawul Group Singapore Exchange Ltd Tel Aviv Stock Exchange TMX Group Warsaw Stock Exchange Zagreb Stock Exchange   The FTSE Mondo Visione Exchanges Index is compiled by FTSE Group from data based on the share price performance of listed exchanges and trading platforms.

Market for Alternative Investment (mai) and LiVE Exchange (LiVEx) are set to launch the inaugural regional roadshow of 2024, themed "Unlocking Opportunities for Business Growth: Empowering Northern Businesses to Think Big." The roadshow aims to expand growth opportunities for businesses and prepare them for capital market access. Participants will gain insights from industry leaders and experts and access to business consulting services. The event is scheduled for July 12, 2024, at Regional Science Park North, Chiang Mai University. mai and LiVEx President Prapan Charoenprawatt said that both stock exchanges have consistently focused on fostering business potential for entrepreneurs, equipping them with essential knowledge and understanding on business scale-up and preparing them for capital market access. In line with its commitment, The Stock Exchange of Thailand has continuously developed LiVE Platform, a comprehensive resource hub designed to empower entrepreneurs with essential insights and practical tools. This year marks a significant expansion as mai and LiVEx are extending their reach into regions through partnering with organizations to host this roadshow for local entrepreneurs under the theme 'Unlocking Opportunities for Business Growth: Empowering Northern Businesses to Think Big."   "This Chiang Mai roadshow is held in partnership with Science and Technology Park, Chiang Mai University (STeP CMU), an institution that connects Chiang Mai University to industrial, private, and societal sectors, as well as government agencies to drive knowledge and innovation for business in the northern region. We've also joined forces with local partners, including the Chamber of Commerce, Federation of Thai Industries, the Federation of Thai SME, Northern Digital Entrepreneurs Association (NDEA), Young Entrepreneurs Chamber of Commerce (YEC), and Young FTI. Our common goal is to support northern entrepreneurs in achieving quality and sustainable growth. Chiang Mai province is an ideal launchpad for the regional roadshow as it is home to many high-potential entrepreneurs and business leaders. mai and LiVEx set sight on reinforcing business potential of entrepreneurs in other regions including the northeast" Prapan added. The event will feature expert insights on three key topics: 1) Business opportunities and fundraising in SET, mai, and LiVEx; 2) Preparing businesses for fundraising; and 3) Pathways to sustainable growth, featuring real experiences of listed company executives and those preparing for listing. Additionally, business consulting services will be available, and entrepreneurs are entitled to financial support to prepare for quality business growth under specified conditions. The "Unlocking Opportunities for Business Growth: Empowering Northern Businesses to Think Big" roadshow will take place on Friday, July 12, 2024, from 13:00 to 18:00 hrs. at Regional Science Park North, Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai province. Entrepreneurs can register to participate in the event for free at bit.ly/3XVr8ES. For general information on LiVE Platform, please visit www.live-platforms.com

Offa, the UK’s first Sharia-compliant bridge finance fintech, has today launched an innovative new buy-to-let finance (BTL) service – with fast funding decisions delivered via a modern paperless process – aiming to disrupt and transform the traditionally old-fashioned and cumbersome world of Islamic finance. Powered by the latest software, Offa’s BTL service meets the needs of both Muslim and non-Muslim property investors with its flexible property finance solutions and end-to-end digital processes, making it fast and easy to apply and get a quick decision. Sagheer Malik, Offa’s Chief Commercial Officer and MD of Retail Finance, said: “Offa is all about a high-quality modern service and speed is crucial in real estate. With the launch of our ultra-quick buy-to-let service, combined with our teams’ decades of industry experience, we are bringing Islamic finance into the 21st century, leaving behind the onerous paperwork and cumbersome systems that many customers have typically suffered in the past. “Our streamlined digital application process – which is unparalleled in the Islamic finance market – means clients can potentially get a fair decision within minutes, depending on credit rating and risk criteria.” These Islamic BTL products are available to new and seasoned landlords who are British residents or UK expats. Instead of using interest, Offa’s BTL product involves the Islamic finance principles of co-ownership-with-leasing. Customers acquire the property in partnership with Offa and make monthly payments to increase their share, over time owning it. Another key feature of Offa’s BTL product is that where a customer’s rental income is not sufficient for the required affordability criteria for the BTL finance, Offa allows them to make up the difference with their personal monthly income (commonly known in the industry as top-slicing). The service is available to anyone purchasing property in England and Wales aged 21 or over where the property’s value is between £60,000 and £1 million. First-time landlords can also apply, and Offa’s BTL solutions are also available for houses in multiple occupancy (HMOs). Offa provides an ethical finance model designed in accordance with Islamic finance principles, which means not charging interest and investment into sectors deemed harmful to society – such as alcohol, tobacco, and the arms trade. In April, Offa announced a £100 million credit line for its bridge finance arm from a fund managed by UAE-based Gulf Islamic Investments Group (GII). The credit line is the largest of its kind outside of the Gulf, creating significant capacity for the Birmingham-headquartered business to expand and diversify its financial propositions in the UK property market.

The Government today (July 10) welcomed WeBank Co, Ltd (WeBank), a world leading digital bank founded in Shenzhen, as it established its technology company headquarters in Hong Kong. WeBank plans to invest up to US$150 million and create high-skilled technology jobs in the city. The Financial Services and the Treasury Bureau (FSTB) and Invest Hong Kong (InvestHK) have been working together to assist WeBank to set up its technology company headquarters in Hong Kong. The Director-General of InvestHK, Ms Alpha Lau, said, "The establishment of WeBank's operation in Hong Kong has been the result of extensive co-ordination between the FSTB and InvestHK to ensure that the company is well positioned for success upon commencing its activities in our city. The numerous strategic enterprises that have recently announced the opening of international research and development (R&D) centres and headquarters in Hong Kong is clear evidence that our city possesses clear advantages in enabling globally scaled companies to achieve their ambitions. InvestHK warmly welcomes WeBank and remains fully committed to facilitating the establishment and growth of forward-thinking enterprises in our dynamic and vibrant business environment." The President of WeBank, Mr Li Nanqing, said, "Hong Kong has emerged as a centre of excellence in global business connectivity and financial technology innovation. It offers us an ideal environment to advance our innovation and expand our international footprint. We are excited to contribute to and benefit from the city's dynamic fintech ecosystem, robust infrastructure, and strategic connectivity. We look forward to collaborating with local partners, stakeholders and attracting talent on this exciting next step of our journey." WeBank's technology company headquarters in Hong Kong will serve as a base for its R&D activities and provide commercialising technology solutions for global markets. As a key participant, contributor and beneficiary in the Belt and Road Initiative, Hong Kong was chosen by the bank for its high aspirations and readiness to embrace frontier technologies and build a vibrant fintech ecosystem, as well as Hong Kong's well-established international financial services sector. WeBank is well known for bringing inclusive financial services to over 4.5 million micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, and nearly 400 million individuals in Mainland China. Recognised this year by International Data Corporation as the benchmark for the global development of digital banking, WeBank demonstrates leading fintech innovation capabilities in core and cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, cloud computing, and big data. As at today, WeBank has filed over 3,800 patent applications.  

Today, Hang Seng Japan TOPIX 100 Index ETF（Issuer：Hang Seng Investment Management Limited）, an ETF that tracks TOPIX 100 Total Return Index, was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.For the news from Hang Seng Investment Management Limited, please refer to the following URL. Hang Seng Investment Launches Hang Seng Japan TOPIX 100 Index ETF About TOPIX100 JPX Market Innovation & Research, Inc. prepares market capitalization-weighted size-based indices by classifying TOPIX constituents based on market capitalization and liquidity (trading value) in order to meet various needs as benchmarks and passive investments.TOPIX 100 is composed of the 100 most liquid and highly market capitalized stocks (TOPIX Large-Sized). It covers about 66% of the market capitalization of TOPIX.（Coverage ratio of free-float adjusted market capitalization as of June 28, 2024.）   TOPIX 100 Component Stocks (top 20 by free-float market capitalization)（as of 2024.6.28）  

The Council of Experts Concerning the Japanese Version of the Stewardship Code (Chairman: Professor Hiroyuki Kansaku, University of Tokyo Graduate Schools for Law and Politics) published the Principles for Institutional Investors (Japan’s Stewardship Code, hereinafter referred to as "the Code") on February 26, 2014. The Council of Experts on the Stewardship Code (Chairman: Professor Hiroyuki Kansaku) revised the Code on May 29, 2017(Finalization of the Japan’s Stewardship Code (Revised version)(May 29, 2017)). Also, the Council of Experts on the Stewardship Code (FY2019) (Chairman: Professor Hiroyuki Kansaku) revised the Code on March 24, 2020(Finalization of the Japan’s Stewardship Code (Second revised version)(March 24, 2020)). The FSA publishes the list of institutional investors who have notified the FSA of their intention to accept the Code. The FSA updates the list at every quarter. The revised Code describes in its preamble the recommended process of the publication of the list of institutional investors who accept the code as follows: 15. To make institutional investors' acceptance of the Code transparent, the Councils expect institutional investors who accept the Code to: ・publicly disclose on their website: - thier intention to accept the Code; and - disclosure items based on the principles, including guidance, of the Code, as below (i)  specific information that is required to be disclosed by the principles, including guidance, of the Code, such as the policy on how they fulfill the stewardship responsibilities, and (ii) if they do not comply with some of the principles, including guidance, an explanation of the reason; ・annually review and update the disclosed information and publicly disclose such update if it takes place; and ・notify the Financial Services Agency of the address of thier website (the URL) used to disclose the information above. The Councils also expect the Financial Services Agency to publish the information about the institutional investors who have made the disclosure in a tabular form. As of June 30, 2024, there are 334 institutional investors in the list, classified as follows; Trust banks (Shintaku Ginko) : 6 Investment managers (Toshishintaku/Toshikomon Gaisha) : 209 Insurance companies : 24 Pension funds : 84 Others (Service Providers for Institutional Investors, etc.) : 11 (Total) : 334 (Appendix)The list of institutional investors who have accepted to the “Principles for Responsible Institutional Investors” ≪Japan’s Stewardship Code≫ - To promote sustainable growth of companies through investment and dialogue -  (The second sheet is the list highlighted the institutionol investors who newly announced their acceptance oh the Code and other updates.) In consideration of the discussion in the 16th "Council of Experts Concerning the Follow-up of Japan’s Stewardship Code and Japan’s Corporate Governance Code", the FSA newly added the following column for Trust banks, Investment managers and Insurance companies in the list of institutional investors who have signed up to the Principles for Responsible Investors : "Disclosure of Voting Results", "Reasons for Votes", "Stewardship Activity Reports", "Website address which disclose Stewardship Activity Reports". Please also refer to “Stewardship Code: Message from the FSA”, which was published on September 2, 2014. Those who newly intend to accept the Code are invited to notify the FSA (jstewardship[at sign]fsa.go.jp *) of their intention as well as the information below. For details of disclosure items, please see the latest Code (revised on March 24, 2020) Principles for Responsible Institutional Investors ≪Japan's Stewardship Code≫ -To promote sustainable growth of companies through investment and dialogue-. * Please change [at sign] to @  - the institution’s name:  - name of the person in charge:  - contact information (telephone number and email address):  - the URL where the announcement of the acceptance of the Code have been released:  - the URL where the disclosure items described in the Code have been released:  （Only institutional investors classified as trust banks (Shintaku Ginko), investment managers  (Toshishintaku/Toshikomon Gaisha), and insurance companies are requested to provide the following information.）  - whether you disclose the voting results, and its website address (if disclose):  - whether you disclose the reasons for votes  - whether you disclose the stewardship activity reports, and its website address (if disclose):   For institutional investors who do not have their own website, sending the above "the announcement of the acceptance of the Code," "the disclosure items described in the Code," and "stewardship activity reports" in PDF format to the FSA (jstewardship[at sign]fsa.go.jp *) can be substituted for publication on the website. * Please change [at sign] to @   Please also notify the FSA (jstewardship[at sign]fsa.go.jp *) if there are any changes to the above items. * Please change [at sign] to @   Contact Corporate Accounting and Disclosure Division, Policy and Markets Bureau, Financial Services Agency Tel +81-(0)3-3506-6000 (Ex. 3659, 3849)

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has renewed the charter of its Mutual Savings Association Advisory Committee (MSAAC) and seeks nominations for its members. The MSAAC provides advice and information to the Comptroller of the Currency on the condition of mutual savings associations, the regulatory changes or other steps the OCC may be able to take to ensure the health and viability of mutual savings associations, and other issues of concern to mutual savings associations. The committee includes officers and directors of federal mutual savings associations of all types, sizes, operating strategies, and geographic areas, as well as from federal savings associations in a mutual holding company structure. The OCC is seeking nominations of individuals who are officers and/or directors of federal mutual savings associations, or federal stock savings associations that are part of a mutual holding company structure, to be considered for selection as MSAAC members. Nominations must be received on or before August 26, 2024. Nominations of MSAAC members should be sent to msaac.nominations@occ.treas.gov or mailed to: Michael R. Brickman, Deputy Comptroller for Specialty Supervision, 400 7th Street, SW., Washington, DC 20219. Related Links Federal Register notice for Charter Renewal (PDF) Federal Register notice for Nominations (PDF) Mutual Savings Associations Advisory Committee

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has renewed the charter of its Minority Depository Institutions Advisory Committee (MDIAC) and is seeking nominations for its members. The MDIAC provides advice to the Comptroller of the Currency about minority depository institutions, their current condition, potential regulatory changes that may promote their health and viability, and other issues affecting these institutions. The committee includes officers and directors of minority depository institutions of all types, sizes, operating strategies, and geographic areas, as well as from other depository institutions committed to supporting minority depository institutions. The OCC is seeking nominations of individuals who are officers and/or directors of OCC-regulated minority depository institutions or other OCC-regulated depository institutions with a commitment to supporting minority depository institutions, to be considered for selection as MDIAC members. Nominations must be received on or before August 26, 2024. Nominations of MDIAC members should be sent to mdiac.nominations@occ.treas.gov or mailed to: André King, Assistant Deputy Comptroller, 2001 Butterfield Road, Suite 400, Downers Grove, Illinois, 60515. Related Links Federal Register notice for Charter Renewal (PDF) Federal Register notice for MDIAC Nominations (PDF) Minority Depository Institutions Advisory Committee