In letters sent to businesses, the US Securities and Exchange Commission emphasized the need for them to disclose any potential effects of the chaos in the cryptocurrency markets.

Numerous businesses are suffering alongside crypto. The US Securities Exchange Commission is cautioning publicly traded corporations to inform investors if they have a stake in the recent hardships of the industry.

The Division of Corporation Finance of the agency issued an advisory to US public firms on Thursday that “recent bankruptcies and financial difficulties among crypto asset market players have caused widespread disruption in those markets.”

Federal securities laws may require companies to disclose the direct or indirect effects that these events and related collateral have had or may have on their business.

In a sample letter to these businesses, the question of whether their operations are at risk “due to excessive redemptions, withdrawals, or a halt of redemptions or withdrawals of crypto assets” is raised.

The Division of Corporation Finance, which handles disclosures for the SEC, counsels corporations that issue securities on how to alert investors about material hazards to their operations properly.

The SEC has been at odds with many cryptocurrency industries, insisting that many digital asset platforms should be registered exchanges. In contrast, many companies contend that they are either not involved in securities or that the agency needs to define crypto securities adequately.

In a statement to a reporter on Wednesday, SEC Chair Gary Gensler reaffirmed his belief that the agency has made it plain what cryptocurrency companies should do, saying that “the rules are there” and that “legal firms know how to counsel their clients to adhere.”

Over the past several months, the cryptocurrency industry has seen a series of high-profile failures and bankruptcies, with crypto exchange FTX and numerous lenders disclosing that they owed thousands of customers millions of dollars worth of cryptocurrency.