Crypto Could Use Some Defending

I think that a reasonable description of the job of the Securities and Exchange Commission would be: If a company is looking to raise money to fund its business, or (especially) to fund some proposed but not-yet-existing future business, and if it is looking to raise that money by going out to members of the general public and making them promises, then the SEC wants to make sure that the promises are true. It wants to make sure that the company tells people enough information about its business so that they can make an informed investing decision, and that its financial statements are audited, and that its claims are true, and that it keeps investors up to date on what is happening.

This is not a technical description or anything. A more technical description would be that the SEC regulates sales of securities. The normal way for a company to go out and raise money from the general public, or from sophisticated private investors for that matter, is by selling securities.1 So the overlap between “regulating securities” and “regulating fundraising from public investors” is generally pretty good.