| By Rep. Don Beyer (D, VA-8). July 28, 2021. Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA) today introduced the Digital Asset Market Structure and Investor Protection Act, legislation that would protect consumers and promote innovation by incorporating digital assets into existing financial regulatory structures. “Innovation in the digital asset sector is creating new goods and services every day as well as many new, high-quality jobs. The United States should provide a legal and regulatory environment which promotes this type of innovation and growth,” said Rep. Beyer. “Digital assets and blockchain technology hold great promise, and it is clear that assets like Bitcoin and Ether are here to stay. Unfortunately, the current digital asset market structure and regulatory framework is ambiguous and dangerous for investors and consumers. Digital asset holders have been subjected to rampant fraud, theft, and market manipulation for years, yet Congress has hitherto ignored the entreaties of industry experts and federal regulators to create a comprehensive legal framework. Our laws are behind the times, and my bill would start the long overdue process of updating them to give digital asset holders and investors basic protections.” Since the introduction of Bitcoin in late 2008 digital assets have evolved from technological curiosities into financial instruments used by millions of ordinary Americans. Today there are over 11,000 separate digital asset tokens in existence, with a market capitalization of over $1.5 trillion. An estimated 20-46 million Americans own Bitcoin and other digital assets, and that number is expected to grow. Many of these digital asset market participants, who are primarily average Americans rather than large institutional investors, have been victims of theft during trading platform hacks, or been exposed to significant market manipulation or frauds such as ponzi schemes. Digital assets have also been widely used for money laundering and other illicit purposes. For instance, in May 2021, the Colonial Pipeline, which provides gasoline to much of the eastern United States, had its computer system hacked and was forced to pay a $4.4 million ransom in Bitcoin, which is the preferred currency for ransomware attacks. Read Rep. Beyer’s Full Statement Here. |
Tag: Cryptocurrency Policy
Elizabeth Warren Wants The SEC To Kill Crypto. Gary Gensler Had Better Not Agree.
By Jared Whitley. July 23, 2021. (Seeking Alpha)
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has made herself clear that she sees cryptocurrencies as “bogus private digital money” and a kind of social pestilence that needs to be annihilated through regulation. In short, she has no idea what blockchain technology is, what it does, how it works or why people use it – but it has to be stopped and she’s going to stop it.
Like many geriatric progressives approaching their sell-by date in Congress, Warren is so out of step that young progressives in her own party shake their heads at how wrong she is on this one.
But Warren is not some harmless grandmother yelling from her porch – she’s the chair of a Senate Banking subcommittee, and she can do real damage. In a recent letter to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler, Warren not so subtly demanded that the agency start grabbing more regulatory power in order to smash U.S.-based cryptocurrency exchanges. Legal and industry experts believe that Warren colluded with anti-crypto zealots inside the SEC to write that letter as a Beltway power play, hoping to lock in the SEC as “the Terminator” before other agencies, like the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), dare to legitimize the utility and benefits of this new technology. Taking a step back, it was an act of desperation by a faction of Washington dinosaurs that are poised to be on the losing side of history, and Gensler’s agency is in turmoil.