The crypto space is highly speculative. On Monday, US Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler warned that investors need to pay close attention to disclosures, token ownership, and much more when taking on risks.Gensler addressed the crypto market during the 2022 FINRA annual conference Monday, following a crypto crash last week, which saw the TerraUSD (UST) stablecoin collapse and Bitcoin drop below the $30,000 level.One of the big problems in the crypto space is that investors are not getting a proper disclosure of the risks involved.The tokens Gensler is focusing on are considered securities. The key difference between a commodity and security when it comes to digital tokens is the raising of money by a third party.This was a rare crypto 101 lesson from Gensler, who said the space is not as decentralized as many people present to be."This crypto asset space is not that decentralized. There's a lot of concentration. There's a handful of major trading venues and a handful of major lending venues that you, the investing public, think you're trading on or investing," he said.To protect the public, the Securities and Exchange Commission is examining the ground rules of the market to regulate honesty and transparency, thus being proactive and protecting customers from fraud and manipulation.Ownership of tokens is also often quite misleading in the crypto space, warned the SEC chair. "Don't think you own your tokens when you go into a digital wallet and transfer ownership to a platform. And if the platform goes down, you're just having a counter-party relationship with the platform, so get in line in bankruptcy court," he said.In addition, crypto platforms are not prohibited from using the tokens stored there. They can trade them.The stock markets have laws from 50 years ago about bankruptcy protection and so on. The New York Stock Exchange is not trading against customers.These platforms are often trading against customers. This was explained by Gensler.This is not the first time Gensler brought up the idea that crypto platforms are trading against investors. In an interview with Bloomberg last week, Gensler pointed out that digital-asset exchanges are "trading ahead of their customers" and are often "trading against their customers ... because they're market-marking against their customers."Another significant risk Gensler mentioned on Monday was that investors get too involved in the cryptocurrency space and being caught up in something similar to what happened in the equity market in the 1920s.The SEC chairman noted that until there is better regulation of the crypto space, the public will remain vulnerable.
