US is lagging certainly “falling behind the curve,” said Hester Peirce, one of what will soon be five commissioners at the Securities and Exchange Commission, during an interview on MarketWatch’s Investing in Crypto virtual event series. This major financial regulator has warned US about building a rational regulatory framework for the blockchain and cryptocurrency sectors and that a failure threatens to deprive the US economy of the benefits of new innovations.
“We’ve seen other countries take a more productive approach to regulating crypto. Our approach has been to say no and tell people wait… We need to build a framework that is appropriate for this industry.” he said.
Peirce hopes Congress will step in to draw some lines in collaboration with regulators – SEC, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the U.S. Department of the Treasury, and the Federal Reserve, among others – so that entrepreneurs have a clear understanding of cryptocurrency regulatory policy. In addition, Pierce also addressed the issue of the central bank’s digital currency, in light of China’s recent unveiling of a digital yuan and as the Federal Reserve is currently investigating the possibility of issuing a new blockchain-enabled digital dollar.
He noted that private stablecoins, or cryptocurrencies that aim to tie their value to some other currency, could play the same role as a government-backed digital currency and have already proven their popularity. Meanwhile, you have stated that the decentralized nature of some cryptocurrencies is where the “real power” of the technology lies.
“Some of the weakness in our financial system comes from its concentration…you can make a more robust system” by relying more on decentralized elements, like the cryptocurrencies bitcoin or Ethereum”
For investors who are concerned that the US government will soon crack down on the use of cryptocurrencies in the name of investor protection or in order to maintain better control of the money supply, Peirce had some reassuring words:
“I think we were past that point [where governments could effectively ban crypto] because you’d have to shut down the internet,” she said. “A government could say it’s not allowed here, but people would still be able to do it and it would be very hard to stop people from doing it. It would be a foolish thing” for a government to attempt, Peirce said
