Two recent shepherds of US Crypto Surveillance — former Republican MP Patrick McHenry and former Democratic Commodity Futures Trade Commission chief Rostin Boehnham — shared the view that there is still more to do about US Cryptographing, but now it’s a moment to do it.
McHenry said in a discussion hosted by Georgetown University’s Psoros Financial Market Policy Center, Sen. Tim Scott, South Carolina Speaker of the Senate Banking Committee, and France Hill, the Arkansas Republican, who heads the House Financial Services Committee, presented the ideal opportunity for the industry to establish healthy laws.
“And I think you should take it,” he said, arguing that solid laws will serve as a better future defense than a regulatory suspension that is not related to Congress’ actions. “Let’s oppose the bad regulators who take these seats to kill digital innovation.”
Last year, Mchenry supported financial innovation and technology in the 21st Century Act (FIT21) that underpins this year’s Congressional efforts on Crypto’s market structure. The former lawmaker, who is now advising industry investors A16Z, predicted a “wicked hot summer for legislation.”
Mchenry also held his hands directly on last year’s Stablecoin law, which was returned in a new version of the House and Senate. They are mostly in line with each other, but he said that the “major brewing battle” is formed between the US Stablecoin Issuer Circle (USDC) and global leader Tether (USDT) about how US non-US publishers are handled.
After Congress passed the law, both want to work in business, Mchenry said, “They are both actively working at Capitol Hill and are trying to listen to their perspective.” He said he expects “rational landing sites” to be seen in the US administration to enable US investors to deal with it.
“You shouldn’t blow up international products that you want to be controlled by the dollar. I don’t think that’s a reasonable outcome,” he argued, but the issue could take several more months among lawmakers. Just as lawmakers do what they can to turn ideas into law, the debate over the meat of highly technical policies ultimately shifts from science to art, Mchenry said.
On the other hand, the industry is rarely regulated at the federal level. As Behnam said, “We can’t stop what the industry is doing, like exchanging tokens, developing protocols, etc. It’s been going on for years.”
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