Lawyers see crypto regulation coming in 2023 because industry needs to rebuild trust

Joe Castelluccio is featured in this article. His highlighted quotes are below.

“It’s safe to say U.S. regulators will continue to pursue enforcement actions across a variety of crypto asset-related activities,” Joe Castelluccio, partner and co-lead of the fintech and digital assets, blockchain and cryptocurrency groups at Mayer Brown, said to TechCrunch. “There’s no impetus for regulators to reduce their level of enforcement activity and recent events are likely to embolden
them.”

Castelluccio said he expects increased regulatory enforcement in retail-facing businesses. “We were likely to see this type of stepped-up enforcement anyway, as crypto-asset prices began to fall earlier this year.”

But it’s even more likely now given the scale of the damage from the bankruptcies of FTX, Celsius and Voyager, Castelluccio noted. “In one sense, the bankruptcies of several significant crypto asset players in the past year will likely create some additional skepticism of ‘crypto’ in the broadest sense,” Castelluccio said. “But I think ‘crypto’ is viewed as a homogeneous industry by many and poorly understood in general.”

With that said, there are many blockchain applications and digital assets-related businesses that have nothing to do with the activities of these bankrupt businesses, Castelluccio said. “In five years, we’ll look back and see that the digital-asset market leaders in 2028 are companies planting seeds in those areas today.”