In December, six crypto executives appeared in a hearing of the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services.
Two members from the influential Senate Banking Committee, who took note of the testimony and will be involved in regulating cryptocurrency, are cryptocurrency owners.
Check out The following: Six Crypto Execs warn Congress not to overregulate Crypto.
A Wall Street Journal analysis of public financial records showed that the senator. Cynthia Lummis owns $250,000 in bitcoin. This is enough to make the Wyoming Republican a strong advocate for bitcoin. The most invested members of Congress in bitcoin, as the report stated. She has accepted bitcoin-related contributions as well as Wyoming has passed many crypto-friendly laws.
Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) has a lower percentage of the market.
Lummis And Toomey Are the sole senators to have this type of investment. The WSJ concluded that Toomey and Lummis are the only senators with such investments after a thorough examination of disclosures about financial assets. They say their experience with cryptocurrency will aid them in drafting legislation.
Lummis reports suggesting that she will lobby colleagues in Congress to adopt Wyoming’s relaxed approach to regulation of Crypto, which has caused crypto exchange Kraken and blockchain platform, Cardano to relocate their headquarters into the state. Along with exempting digital currencies from taxes on property and establishing a regulation system, Wyoming has encouraged crypto miners to utilize natural gas, a poisonous product from oil drilling, to fuel their energy-intensive business.
In testimony at Capitol Hill, crypto execs stated that this kind of hands-off approach is effective for them.
Circle President Jeremy Allaire said as many as 20 million individuals within the U.S. and 200 million worldwide take part in the market for digital assets.
He warned that not all electronic payment methods are created simultaneously. However, in the same token, “not all of them are part of an unregulated Wild West as has been frequently depicted,” he added.
Allaire said that any framework for the policy must be able to provide an “open and level playing field that allows technology advancements to thrive.”
Brian Brooks, CEO of the Bitfury Group, testified that a plan for a national policy that is serious about crypto compliance must consider whether it is the sense the crypto-related activities outside of the financial system that is regulated or to bring them into the financial system so that they can be monitored and managed with the appropriate level of risk management.
Alesia Jeanne Haas, CEO of Coinbase and CFO of Coinbase’s U.S. subsidiary, warned that if legislation isn’t open to public debate, The U.S. risks unnecessarily onerous and stifling laws and regulations.
However, not everyone is convinced that an easy approach to cryptocurrency regulations is the way to go. Some believe it’s not appropriate for elected officials who hold the cryptos as personal investments to decide the rules for the future.
Lee Reiners, a former official of Lee Reiners, a former official at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York Because of the two senators’ stance on an open-minded cryptocurrency policy, It is reasonable to inquire about their conflicts of interests.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the New York Democrat who sits on the House Financial Services Committee, posted on Instagram that lawmakers in Congress shouldn’t own individual cryptocurrencies or stocks.
“Because the public has access to confidential information as well as forthcoming policy, I don’t believe that members of Congress should be able to trade or hold individual stock, and therefore I have decided not to have any shares, so I am not biased about policies,” she said. “I extend this to digital assets and currencies, specifically since I am on the Financial Services Committee. The answer is no because I’m determined to do my work with integrity and honesty as I can.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has introduced stricter ethics regulations that would ban members of Congress and federal officials from trading or holding stocks or other assets that could be in the hands of their department, agency, or even their actions.
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Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Gary Gensler has warned that cryptocurrency exchanges that do not operate by SEC approval could be subject to more sanctions.