Though the NCUA's letter is progress, it leaves many questions unanswered, according to Alenka Grealish , an analyst for the research and advisory firm Celent.
The disclosures listed in the NCUA’s letter assume that consumers already have some knowledge of the risks of investing in cryptocurrency, she said.
“A fundamental thing that’s missing, both within the letter and across regulators, is how do you describe this new asset class to consumers and to the mass market when nothing like this has ever existed before,” Grealish said. “Sure, you can tell the consumer that cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are ‘heavily speculative’ and ‘volatile’ when advertising, but the challenge lies in how to accurately describe this through common language used by consumers.”