> Fed and SEC etc all claim they want to make things safe for retail investors
The Fed makes no such claim and has no such mandate.
The SEC does, though it's hampered by its jurisdiction over securities and little else. Cryptocurrencies have succeeded, in part, by branding as and behaving like currencies more than securities. They operate in a space that likely requires legislation to be regulated.
> you will see a ton of regulations coming down like SOX to “protect” investors when we could have been protected RIGHT NOW, May 2021. It’s utter bullshit.
Rulemaking has a cost, economically and politically. For better or for worse, the most effective rule making tends to be reactionary. Regulating cryptocurrencies now would be political suicide. There isn't a clear cut, broadly comprehensible case for it.
> Regulating cryptocurrencies now would be political suicide.
That seems like a stretch. Most people wouldn't care, and the institutions that own it haven't bet that heavily on it. It's a fear-of-missing-out trade for the most part.
But a rich minority would. A rich, motivated group of single-issue activists is political white phosphorous. To say nothing of the fact that the main beneficiaries of such regulation would said minority. The disinterested majority doesn't have much downside if cryptocurrencies go to zero.
If they were rich before cryptocurrencies, they shouldn't care (unless they unwisely bet the farm on it); and if they're rich because of cryptocurrencies, no one else should care, because if cryptocurrencies crash, they wouldn't be rich anymore.
Since you mentioned political, which infers government, what is the impact of cryptocurrencies to governments and the Treasuries if fiat experiences inflation, loss of 'trust', and devaluation? I would likely be more comfortable in a decentralized 'gamble' than the USD or the current banking/financial system.
> what is the impact of cryptocurrencies to governments and the Treasuries if fiat experiences inflation, loss of 'trust', and devaluation?
Not as much as some people think. We've been on fixed-supply currencies before; built empires, waged wars, and administered continent-spanning states on them. America has experienced inflation without banning the ownership of gold or foreign currencies. (And repressive states have survived, even thrived, after doing both.)
If the U.S. Treasury started issuing debt and accepting tax payments in Bitcoin, it prompt a rocky transition. But it wouldn't be unprecedented. Switching to a multi-currency regime would create a short-term (as in generational) boost in compensation for financial professionals, as the entire morass of financial plumbing gets re-written and overhauled. Players closely tied to attributes unique to the U.S. dollar, like printers and SWIFT, would die. Players operating at higher levels of abstraction, securities houses and depository banks, would do quite well. Assuming Bitcoin continues deflating, lenders would do phenomenally.
The US has banned the ownership of gold in the past, but not because of inflation, although it did result in inflation right away because it also took the US off the gold standard.
The Fed makes no such claim and has no such mandate.
The SEC does, though it's hampered by its jurisdiction over securities and little else. Cryptocurrencies have succeeded, in part, by branding as and behaving like currencies more than securities. They operate in a space that likely requires legislation to be regulated.
> you will see a ton of regulations coming down like SOX to “protect” investors when we could have been protected RIGHT NOW, May 2021. It’s utter bullshit.
Rulemaking has a cost, economically and politically. For better or for worse, the most effective rule making tends to be reactionary. Regulating cryptocurrencies now would be political suicide. There isn't a clear cut, broadly comprehensible case for it.