Republican congressman Brad Sherman chairs a House subcommittee on investor protection, and he is an avid opponent of crypto. He would like to outlaw crypto but realises that there is just too much money and power behind it.
There is much polemic debate on Capitol Hill on the merits or otherwise of cryptocurrencies. Some congressmen are fully behind crypto on its potential promise for fair and accountable transactions among many other advantages.
On the other hand, there are those like Brad Sherman who are worried about fraud for investors, and that crypto could grow enough to become a systemic threat for the US dollar and the monetary system behind it.
Sherman was featured in an article for the Los Angeles Times on Sunday, where he acknowledged that crypto would probably not be banned any time soon:
“I don’t think we’re going to get [to a ban] anytime soon. Money for lobbying and money for campaign contributions works, or people wouldn’t do it; and that’s why we haven’t banned crypto. We didn’t ban it at the beginning because we didn’t realise it was important, and we didn’t ban it now because there’s too much money and power behind it.”
Sherman believes that crypto could “undermine the dominance of the U.S. dollar” and can aid “human rights abusers” and other “criminals”, although the LA Times does rightly point out that crypto technology can work the other way by helping “persecuted people get their money out of authoritarian countries.”
The congressman believes that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) should be doing all the crypto regulation because of its “aggressive enforcement actions”. However, the Stabenow/Boozman bill which was introduced last month would have most cryptocurrencies regulated under the CFTC as commodities.
Sherman is concerned for investors that put their money into “meme coins”, but admits that it will be hard to stop people from spending their money how they want.
“It is hard to be running the subcommittee dedicated to investor protection in a country in which people want to wager on [meme coins]. Cryptocurrency is a meme you invest in, in the hopes that you can sell it to somebody else before it tanks. That’s the nice thing about a Ponzi scheme.”
Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.
Credit: Source link
