Crypto Executivess Advise Congress Against Heavy-Handed Regulation

The U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services Committee hearing on crypto has concluded with a bevy of industry executives urging Congress to take a light-handed approach to regulate the sector.

The hearing held on Capitol Hill on Dec 8 was attended by the CEOs and executives from six major crypto companies: Coinbase, Circle, FTX, Bitfury, Paxos, and the Stellar Development Foundation.

They faced off with policymakers on the other side of the digital divide including Senators Sherrod Brown, Brad Sherman, and Democratic Representative Maxine Waters to discuss stablecoins, Web3 adoption, and America’s position in the future of finance.

It marks the first time crypto industry leaders have explained their businesses and the technology to U.S. lawmakers and regulators.

Tailored crypto regulations required

The panel of executives urged Congress to develop bespoke regulations for the industry rather than forcing it to comply with existing rules that apply to traditional finance and banking.

Chief executive of Coinbase, Alesia Haas, cautioned that the country risked overregulating crypto assets unless there were tailored solutions,

Without tailored legislative solutions that are openly debated with public participation, the United States risks unnecessarily onerous and chilling laws and regulations.

Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire took the stage on stablecoins but his speech was largely about his own company and how it has paved the way for the digital dollars of the internet.

Bitfury CEO, Brian Brooks, said that treading crypto like a huge regulation issue now would be like treating the internet in the 90s like it was only a tax question.

Democrat Ritchie Torres said that he was concerned that crypto would present a challenge to the USD as the world’s reserve currency. However, he noted that major stablecoin issuers have chosen to peg against the dollar which is a “vote of confidence” in the currency and its reserve status.  

Paxos CEO Chad Cascarilla responded by stating “people want a U.S. dollar bank account, everywhere in the world people want US dollars,” before adding that they are hard to access at the moment which is why tokenized dollars are the solution;

You don’t need to have a bank account, yet you can have access to the dollar-based system.

Congressman Ted Budd asked former OCC (Office of the Comptroller of the Currency) head, Brian Brooks, if the U.S. was behind the curve regarding fostering a pro-crypto growth environment to which he responded “absolutely,” blaming the SEC for blocking the approval of crypto-based products.