CFTC Chief, Giancarlo gave hope with his balanced and “do no harm” approach to cryptocurrencies to bitcoin enthusiasts. However, SEC chief, Jay Clayton is reluctant towards cryptocurrencies, favours blockchain but is not at all a fan of ICOs.
The U.S. cryptocurrency regulations prospect became a bit clear at yesterday meeting of Senate Committee with the heads of both SEC and CFTC. The statements from both the chief gave clarity on the direction the US regulation on digital currencies will be headed.
Amidst the government’s crackdown on cryptocurrencies and banks blocking customers from bitcoin with their credit cards, this Senate hearing was a respite for HODLers. The Senate Committee heard the testimonies on the potential dangers posed by virtual currencies as investments.
This meeting resulted in a positive outcome as evident from the risen prices of about $7,707, at the time, after dropping down to $6,000 yesterday.
By revealing a story of how only last year, his own children’s interest in investing peaked up, is how the CFTC chief opened his remarks.
He commented with: “It strikes me that we owe it to this generation to respect their enthusiasm about virtual currencies with a thoughtful and balanced response, not a dismissive one.”
However, he did emphasize that the regulators “must crack down on those who try to abuse [the younger generations’] enthusiasm with fraud and manipulation.”
Moreover, he also mentioned: “We may be back with our friends from the U.S. Treasury and the Fed to ask for additional legislation.”
Giancarlo, won the hearts of bitcoin enthusiasts with several of his comments, starting with, most probably the first ever use of the “hodl” word in a congressional hearing.
He followed up his prudent remarks with his statement:
“I suggest the right regulatory response to virtual currencies has at least several elements.”
Giancarlo also stated that first there is a need to learn everything about it.
He further stated that the market cap of these virtual currencies is the key here. Giancarlo explained it with: “The total value of all virtual currency in the world is around $313 billion. In comparison, global money supply is around $7.6 trillion, while the value of all the gold in the world is around $8 trillion.”
As per him, the next crucial task is to educate the customers: “We’ve never conducted this much outreach for any other financial product.”
Unlike the big banking giants that differentiated bitcoins and blockchain by calling bitcoin a fraud and blockchain something real, Giancarlo struck a different chord towards the end of hearing by making it clear that: “It’s important to remember that if there were no Bitcoin, there would be no distributed ledger technology.”
Jay Clayton in his testimonies favoured blockchain but was less enthusiastic about cryptocurrencies and ICOs both. According to him, these are basically the subsets of products and just looking to benefit from the opportunities presented by blockchain.
No doubt, this hearing made the bitcoin enthusiasts happy and affected the cryptocurrency market positively with bitcoin’s price rising by 21%.
What are your views on both Giancarlo and Clayton’s remarks? Let us know your thoughts in our comment section below!
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