The chief executive of crypto derivatives exchange platform FTX says that he’s in favor of comprehensive stablecoin regulations.
In a new interview on the Bankless podcast, FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried says that he’d prefer “really thorough” regulations when it comes to dollar-pegged crypto assets.
The crypto billionaire says that stablecoin issuers should be required to prove that the digital assets they claim are backed 1:1 by US dollars actually have the reserves they claim to have.
“If you’re looking at a stablecoin and you’re thinking, ‘Should it be regulated?’ I kind of think that it’s important that there is oversight of these holdings. If it’s a 1:1 USD-backed stablecoin, or so it claims, there should be something proving that it is 1:1 backed.
I’m sort of in favor of really thorough regulations confirming the number of dollars in the bank account is at least as many as the number of tokens there. Maybe you have multiple auditors who have to audit it. It’s not that hard of a thing to audit. It’s not that expensive.”
Though Bankman-Fried says that the auditing of stablecoins should be highly regulated, he believes that users should be free from any constraints that could slow down the adoption of the dollar-pegged crypto assets.
“But then say like you’re going to 7/11 to buy a bagel and you want to pay with a stablecoin, is there a broker/dealer that has to be involved?
I think absolutely not. I think it’s very important that we not require a broker/dealer to buy a bagel. That would just completely kill commerce. And so my core thought roughly is that we should be really thoughtful about where the regulation comes in and what it does.”
