Reuters: DOGE Now Targeting SEC Policy

DOGE now targeting SEC policy, eyes SPAC rules, sources say

President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency initiative has pushed the U.S. markets watchdog to loosen Wall Street rules around blank-check companies and confidential reporting by private investment funds, according to two people familiar with the matter.

DOGE officials at the SEC, who have so far focused on cutting costs, have in recent weeks sought meetings with staff to explore relaxing what some companies have described as burdensome and unnecessary regulations, including reworking Biden-era rules adopted last year on so-called Special Purpose Acquisition Companies, or SPACs, and requirements that private investment advisers confidentially disclose more data so regulators can better spot systemic risk, the sources said. […]

But the same sources, who requested anonymity to speak about confidential discussions, said DOGE’s involvement in crafting new policy has rankled some SEC officials, raising concerns over whether a White House initiative should be involved in the core work of an agency long seen as independent.

Popular Financial Adviser Ric Edelman Says Investors Should Allocate Up to 40% of Wealth to Crypto

Prominent financial adviser Ric Edelman says investors should consider putting as much as 40% of their wealth into cryptocurrency, a bold recommendation that reflects how far digital assets have come in recent years.

“Today I am saying 40%, that’s astonishing,” Edelman told CNBC’s Crypto World on Friday. “No one has ever said such a thing.” […]

Edelman, founder of the Digital Assets Council of Financial Professionals, has been active in crypto for over a decade. He first urged investors to allocate part of their portfolios to bitcoin in 2018. In his 2021 book “The Truth About Crypto,” he described even a 1% crypto allocation as “reasonable” for most people.

Now, Edelman believes the case for crypto exposure is far stronger, pointing to what he called a “massive change” in the industry over the past four years. In particular, he highlighted growing political support for digital assets, especially following the election of U.S. President Donald Trump.

“Today, all those questions have been resolved,” Edelman said, referring to regulatory uncertainty and institutional hesitation. “It’s radically changed and is now a mainstream asset.”

‘Lock In:’ After Court Rebuke, SEC and Ripple to Drop Appeals and Focus on What’s Next

Arlo Devlin-Brown, ex-chief of the public corruption unit at the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s Office who was most recently a partner at Covington & Burling, said the SEC’s decision to nix its appeal showed the agency has no appetite to litigate the issue of what is or is not a security—once a major issue in crypto enforcement—as a new regulatory framework is under development.

Devlin-Brown, now a partner in New York at Treanor Devlin Brown, which opened its doors this month, said the SEC is in a position where it needs to establish clear rules of the road and a regulatory framework before taking action against crypto market players. Then, Devlin-Brown predicted, litigators will see a surge in work from the increase in enforcement action.

“The SEC wants to lay out a path where players in the industry can issue tokens, can trade tokens and build products off of those tokens with clear guidelines on what’s permitted and what isn’t,” Devlin-Brown said. “The regulated players who abide by those new guidelines will want to see the SEC take action on companies that are trying to avoid the regulations and undercut the players that are trying to be compliant with the SEC.”

Aberdeen chair says ‘save the world’ claim by asset managers was a ‘mistake’

Asset managers made a “huge mistake” in claiming the investment industry could “save the world”, the departing chair of the UK’s Aberdeen Group said, over-egging their role in environment, social and government issues for marketing purposes.

Sir Douglas Flint, a former HSBC chair, told a City of London conference this week that their “ridiculously extravagant claims” had opened up asset managers to legal risk.

The most grandiose claims by financiers were driven by a mindset of “we’re not really about investing money, we’re just jolly good people and we’re saving the world”, Flint said.

“Our industry then made a kind of huge mistake, it became a marketing thing, let’s tell everyone we’re saving the world, we’re saving the planet.” The overly general statements were “a feast” for US-based lawyers, he said.