U.S. SEC to set up new office for crypto filings

(Reuters) - The U.S. securities regulator will set up two new offices to deal with filings related to crypto assets and the life sciences sector, the agency said on Friday.

The "Office of Crypto Assets" and the "Office of Industrial Applications and Services" will join seven existing offices under the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) department which handles corporate disclosure filings.

"As a result of recent growth in the crypto asset and the life sciences industries, we saw a need to provide greater and more specialized support," Renee Jones, director of the Division of Corporation Finance, said in a statement.

Cryptocurrencies and other digital assets have soared in popularity over recent years and are getting increasingly intertwined with the regulated financial system, saddling policymakers with monitoring risks in a largely unregulated sector.

2022 has seen a sharp drop in crypto demand though, as global risk sentiment was walloped by the Ukraine crisis, aggressive monetary policy tightening and decades-high inflation.

Allegations of money laundering against some crypto firms as well as consumer data violations in the United States, the biggest market for digital assets, have also affected demand.

(Reporting by Manya Saini in Bengaluru; Editing by Devika Syamnath)