The policy director for the organization said that a divided Congress is unlikely to pass crypto legislation, but that this does not give regulators unchecked power in the meantime.
The Blockchain Association’s policy expert believes that despite efforts to regulate cryptocurrencies via enforcement actions, U.S. financial authorities “are limited by legal realities,” and crypto rules will eventually be decided by Congress.
Chief policy officer Jake Chervinsky of the association tweeted extensively on the topic of crypto policy on February 14.
He pointed out that “neither the SEC nor the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has the power to completely oversee crypto.”
Given the “ideological chasm” between House Republicans and Senate Democrats, Chervinsky thinks a compromise on crypto legislation is “unlikely.” He said that the SEC and CFTC were trying to “get things done” outside of Congress’s authority and that this was an overreach of their jurisdiction.
As an example of the SEC’s attack on staking services, Chervinsky urged the sector to be calm despite the current flurry of action from “crypto’s greatest opponent,” the SEC.
Hester Peirce, a commissioner at the SEC, openly criticised the agency’s February 9 settlement with cryptocurrency exchange Kraken, which prohibited the company from providing staking services to consumers in the United States.
On February 9th, Peirce released a statement disagreeing with the majority view, arguing that policing by the state “is neither an efficient or equitable manner of governing” a new business.
Since the court plays a crucial role in influencing legislation that has been “ignored,” Chervinsky proposed litigation as one method the crypto business may advocate for good policy.
Coinbase is under SEC scrutiny after a similar investigation into rival Kraken. The CEO and co-founder of Coinbase, Brian Armstrong, has adopted a firmer position, arguing that the United States would be worse off without crypto staking.
Armstrong tweeted on February 12 that Coinbase’s staking services are not securities and that he would “glad defend this in court if required.”
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