WASHINGTON - Gary Gensler, the head of the U.S. securities regulator, said on Monday the agency is weighing how it could extend investor protections afforded to users of exchanges and alternative trading platforms to crypto trading platforms.

The expanded Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) oversight would require the agency to register and regulate platforms on which the trading of securities and non-securities is "intertwined," Gensler said in a virtual speech to an audience at the University of Pennsylvania, his alma mater.

The agency will also collaborate with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission--its sister market regulator--to scrutinize platforms that trade both crypto-based security tokens and commodity tokens, said Gensler, adding that a potential "segregation" of token custody between trading platform assets and customers' assets would also be considered to help stave off theft.

"Any token that is a security must play by the same market integrity rulebook as other securities under our laws."

  - Reuters