Jay Clayton, chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, hinted about what regulators in the United States will do in the crypto space in the coming time.

Clayton was addressing a packed room at CoinDesk’s Consensus: Invest event in Manhattan.

While a panel of experts touched on a range of issues, there were some major takeaways to glean from Clayton’s talk. Here’s what they said:

1. No bitcoin ETF any time soon
The SEC is not likely to give its nod to Exchange traded funds since the third party custody of assets and market manipulation are posing to be major stumbling blocks.

2. Regulated exchanges are needed

Clayton made it very clear that he did not trust existing crypto exchanges to prevent price manipulation.

The panel noted that Clayton seemed to hint that some kind of move to get bitcoin onto a regulated exchange may be underway.

3. The rise of “CorpoCoin”
To further tame crypto, Clayton also made it clear that anti-money laundering protections had to be put in place for crypto trading.

The panel wondered what the implications of that push might hold for the body of retail investors that are active in the market today.

“My question is this,” said one of the panel members. “There’s a lot of institutional money here. If you regulate it and you have market surveillance, will retail interest remain the same?”

Borrowing a term the panel member credited to Andreas Antonopoulos, Long described that future as one for “CorpoCoin,” adding:“What’s going to happen if this becomes too corporatized, is the crypto community will just fork off.”

4. ICO-funded startups should go see the SEC, ASAP
Repeating a theme Clayton stressed in his talk, the panel argued it would behoove crypto startups that raised money in 2017 and early 2018 to go to the regulators now.

Paraphrasing Clayton, one of the panel member said: “Those that come see us may get one deal, those we come find may get another.”

Earlier this month the SEC issued its first civil penalties to two startups that did not properly register their securities offerings. With those “templates” in hand, the panel member said, the SEC might be getting ready to move much faster on ICOs.

5. No action on “no-action” letters
One of Clayton’s messages from the stage was that the SEC’s doors are open to startups working in the industry, particularly those that are issuing their own tokens. To this end, the agency recently launched a new fin-tech focused division with the explicit goal of fostering communication with ICO startups.

6. Courts may see ICOs differently

While regulators are already on it, there’s another frontier for determining the validity of new funding mechanisms for blockchain startups.

As the panel asked: “What are courts going to do when they start parsing through token sales?” In fact, it’s already starting to happen.

Maybe in 10 years – or perhaps even less – the panel said, the U.S. Supreme Court may take a look.

Broadly speaking, Clayton argued from the stage that the SEC is happy to help crypto startups in the U.S. find a way to get in compliance with the law, but our panel of regulatory experts said that, in practice, this turns out to be much more difficult (and costly) than the chairman made it sound.