If all that is true and SEC registration is so great for investors, why isn't any exchange satisfying that market demand and registering with the SEC? Seems like a no-brainer.
1. It's not clear whether exchanges like Coinbase could technically comply with the rules for running a securities exchange, because the fine print of "what to do" doesn't fit well at all with the technical reality of "what does it mean to hold a cryptoasset" [1]
2. The SEC want token "creators" to register them as securities. Which they could do, but they would then be subject to SEC oversight, which is precisely what they're trying to avoid. ICOs are really a way of raising money from retail investors like a public company, without following any of the regulation around public companies.
So even if we solved 1., there might not be many tokens left to legally trade on a registered securities exchange.
