The Europeans seem to have the more pragmatic and sensible approach. ESMA, which are vaguely analogous to the SEC,
recently said regulation is "premature" and that they need more time to assess things (Translation: they can't see an immediate and obvious way to regulate crypto). It's a blatant stalling tactic because they can tell it's a bit like trying to regulate P2P filesharing but even harder. If you think about it, that's almost an acknowledgement of the near futility of trying to regulate it.
The ECB went even further, basically saying
it's nothing to do with them. They regulate fiat. That's the limit of their job description and they know it. It's clear they're pretty much powerless to regulate Bitcoin in any meaningful way, so they're not even going to try.
The SEC, however, are a bunch of loudmouth dumbasses and can keep banging their heads against a wall for a while longer until the obvious fact sinks in that they're not going to have much luck. The only things that
need regulating are shady ICOs, the services that deal in fiat and any services that hold customer funds. Those are the only weak points in crypto (or not necessarily
in crypto itself, but the stupid things people freely choose to do with their crypto) that need tightening up. Beyond that, you can't regulate shit.
