“Anti-cryptocurrency wing of the US Congress is a shrinking iceberg”

Christopher Giancarlo, former president of the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), assured that the trend against the bitcoin (BTC) ecosystem and other cryptocurrencies in that country is reducing.

In an interview, the former official, who headed the CFTC from 2017 to 2019, asserted that the entire anti-cryptocurrency movement, led by US Senator Elizabeth Warren, began to shrink. He compared this trend to an iceberg that began to thaw.

He thus recalled that Warren, a Democratic senator from the state of Massachusetts, has carried out an entire campaign of stigmatization against bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. According to this leader, these digital assets They are usually used for different crimes, including sexual abuse and drug trafficking.

The anti-cryptocurrency trend has led it, for example, to present bills that practically prohibit the ecosystem. As well as giving public demonstrations of rejection of the emerging market. Even when it has been shown that the Criminals still prefer fiat money, such as the US dollar.

However, according to Giancarlo, the anti-cryptocurrency trend is slowing down. And that occurs to the extent that The United States seems on track towards clearer regulation for the cryptoasset industry.

In the opinion of Giancarlo, who is a specialist in finance and technology, the vision of the “anti-crypto armies” It is an “octygenarian perspective” that the new generations do not have about the cryptocurrency sector.

This, remembering that, until now, these assets are usually regulated in the United States under laws of the late 1930sbrought against the industry by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Something Giancarlo opposes. He criticizes that this body “has not been willing to draft regulatory standards for cryptocurrencies,” as Forbes reports.

“The SEC says the same rules that apply to stocks and securities apply to cryptocurrencies. That’s like saying the same rules apply to rail and air transportation. Both are means of transportation, but they are very different technologies. The SEC has created different rules for municipal bonds, debt, and stocks. There is no reason why there can’t be a bespoke set of rules for cryptocurrencies. But the SEC has not been willing to write those rules.”

Christopher Giancarlo, former chairman of the CFTC.

Giancarlo’s stance on the anti-cryptocurrency movement in the United States is different from that of the current CFTC president, Rostin Behman. He said a few weeks ago that a real regulatory storm would hit the cryptocurrency ecosystem, due to the bull market and increased institutional interest.

Such a storm would result in enforcement actions against cryptocurrency platforms that operate in the United States, something that has already been happening since the beginning of the year, resulting in the arrest, accusation and accusations against several leaders of the cryptoasset industry.

“The CFTC is ready to regulate cryptocurrencies”

On the other hand, Christopher Giancarlo spoke about the recent approval in the Lower House of the FIT21 Law, aimed at regulating the bitcoin and cryptocurrency ecosystem in the United States.

In the opinion of the former CFTC president, the legislation, if approved in the Senate and finally signed into law by President Joe Biden, will give that body the power to regulate and supervise the cryptocurrency ecosystem directly.

“Therefore, the CFTC would find itself, to some extent, participating in the supervision of the retail market (…) The CFTC already has certain sectors of retail supervision and has proven to be able to handle them very well. At the end of the day, we as a nation need to regulate retail cryptocurrency markets, and someone has to do the job.”

Christopher Giancarlo, former chairman of the CFTC.

Giancarlo recalled that the CFTC allowed the trading of bitcoin futures in 2017, which has allowed him prove itself “as a very capable cryptocurrency regulator.”

In his opinion, the cryptoasset market is “deep, liquid, transparent and well regulated. I think the CFTC has earned its wings in this regard.”

“I think the CFTC can take on the job now,” he said, although he clarified that, to do so, Congress will have to give him additional resources. “You cannot say that we will regulate an area, assign it to a regulator and not give them resources to do so. But with the right resources, I believe the CFTC is ready for this job,” he noted.