26th January 2023 > > The US.
Updated: Jan 27, 2023
tl;dr
The US is getting it wrong, and there are just a handful of individuals who are responsible for this.
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Not sure whether this is just me but all I can see this morning are headlines about the BTC price suffering.
Rallying again to regain the 23-handle doesn’t fit my definition of suffering, but perhaps the news outlets calling it otherwise are simply inhabiting a Californian world, describing their own lived experience, one which has little basis in the real world.
But why let a simple thing called facts get in the way of a good story.
Curious Cryptos’ Commentary — Senator Elizabeth Warren
There are very few examples of politicians who let facts get in the way of their outlook on life, but Warren is an extreme example of putting personal prejudice ahead of the common good.
As the headline act for an hour’s long one-sided discussion about cryptos hosted by the “American Economic Liberties Project” (spoiler alert: the use of the word “Liberties” in their self-declared title is as true as your elite Californian’s lived experience) Warren used some basic truths that are relevant to the entire financial world to extract some extreme criticisms of the crypto world.
The stage was set with the conference title "Confronting the Crypto Challenge: Learning From a Meltdown” which is not only needlessly aggressive and misdirected, but also now a touch out of date. Much like the panel of contributors, one might be tempted to say.
Warren is a strong supporter of Gary Gensler, Chair of the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) highlighting his ongoing rejection of a physical BTC ETF (exchange traded fund).
She forgot to mention that this lack of approval means that investors either trade BTC in unregulated markets, with zero custodial protection, or trade in the futures market invariably involving leverage and contango risk, but these simple and basic facts would get in the way of her personal prejudices, so she merrily ignores them.
To highlight the farcical nature of her views she stated:
“… the SEC has the right rules, and the right experience, and Gary Gensler is demonstrating that he is the right leader to get the job done.”
Everyone, Gensler included, agrees that the SEC’s approach is one of regulation by enforcement, an approach never countenanced before now by any financial regulator. To a certain extent this is testament to a failure by the political elite in the US to determine the rules of the game, but if Warren acknowledged this fact, she would be pointing the finger of blame at herself and heaven forbid anyone should ever do that.
To be fair she points out that celebrity crypto promoters have been sanctioned – and deservedly so – and that much like TradFi there are crooks, scammers, and con artists, preying on the naïve and vulnerable.
But this has been a facet of humankind’s existence since before we left the plains of Africa and is most certainly not a product of the desire to shake off the shackles of centralised control and coercion embodied in the freedoms of a decentralised world made possible by blockchain technology, powered by cryptos.
…
Perhaps I have a bit of a sore whiskey head after Burns night, so it is for the best that I stop ranting about Warren’s unfortunately outdated look on life.
But she is one of the key stumbling blocks to making concrete progress towards regulatory clarity for the crypto industry in the US.
Regular readers already know that the UK is spectacularly unattractive for crypto entrepreneurs and innovators, whilst the EU – to the surprise of many commentators including yours truly – is fast becoming the global leader in setting the standards and rules for crypto innovation to thrive and develop.
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