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Last night I threw up the first post explaining that I was going to be doing a little series about the recent hearings on Capitol Hill about cryptocurrency and blockchain overall. The first hearing I will be covering I think I will be able to do in one single part and it was held by the Joint Economic Committee which is a committee that has members of both the House and the Senate on it. This hearing was titled "Demystifying Crypto: Digital Assets and the Role of Government" and served as an introductory hearing for the topic.
In his opening remarks, Democratic Chairman Beyer pointed out how Tether had issued out $70 billion in stablecoins but lacked the cash or cash equivalents to back this amount. He also called for increased reporting for decentralized financial platforms something he states he addresses in his legislation that was introduced earlier this year called "The Digital Asset Market Structure and Investor Protection Act". His legislation will provide the guardrails and provide clarity for regulators and investors without stifling innovation in his view.
Republican Ranking Member Senator Lee in his opening remarks highlighted a ton of benefits that have emerged from cryptocurrencies and the blockchain itself. How the technology is still in its infancy and how Washington is quick to want to regulate/involve itself in new things that it does not quite understand pushing the companies and jobs away and leading to a huge loss for the American public. He was big on creating clarity for the laws and regulations as opposed to adding new ones.
When the witnesses gave their opening statements it was quick and easy to see who was really aware of what they were talking about and who was not. A recurring issue was the idea that the old way of doing things could be applied to this new field which is something that we know and a couple of witnesses finally did hint at. I have to admit I was pretty stuck with how partisan the issue was with Democratic members really really wanting vast amounts of data that runs contrary to the idea of decentralization.
If there was one thing that without going into any deal really both sides sort of agreed on it was making sure that the centralized exchanges are all held to the same standard. As it stands right now Coinbase, Kraken, and others are not actually held to the same standard by an governmental agency. As it stands these firms fall through the regulatory cracks. It would make sense that this would be leveled out but the amount of data that some of these witnesses were saying DEXs and CEXs should get are worse then what the banking system currently does.
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