Treasury Will Warn White House That Crypto Needs Major Regulations

The Treasury Department will warn the White House that cryptocurrencies could pose significant financial risks that outweigh their benefits unless the government rolls out major new regulations, Washington Post reported Thursday, citing two people familiar with the matter. From the report: Through four separate reports this month, Treasury is expected to make clear that the Biden administration's top economic officials believe crypto needs strong oversight, as lawmakers weigh new rules for the digital assets. Treasury's reports will highlight the economic danger of cryptocurrencies in several key areas, including the fraud risks they pose for investors, the two people familiar with the matter said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the reports before they're public. Treasury's assessments conclude that cryptocurrencies do not yet pose a stability risk to the broader financial system -- but that the situation could change rapidly. One of the reports will focus in particular on the financial hazards posed by stablecoins, a form of cryptocurrency that is in theory pegged to the value of the U.S. dollar, the people said. Treasury last fall called on Congress to give banking regulators new authority to police those digital tokens, but lawmakers have yet to reach agreement on how to do so. Meanwhile, the collapse of a $60 billion stablecoin project called Terra this spring helped accelerate a broader crypto market downturn that's ongoing.

#Suddenoutbreakofcommonsense

[GameboyRMH]

Better 7+ years late than never I guess!

You will own nothing and be happy.

[Anonymous Coward]

You won't even be allowed to PRETEND to own some virtual coin.

Accountability!

[BishopBerkeley]

That is what will make crypto pop and collapse: accountability.

Of course, accountability could also turn it into a real currency, but the nitwits who are in this game will never give up the pyramid scheme because they so badly want to to make it to the top before it's over. So, accountability will kill crypto.

Good riddance.

It seems a little late, now

[zephvark]

Isn't "crypto" already collapsing, just by itself? Do we need a sudden flurry of regulations for dealing with its decreasing influence? Do we care about the flutter-headed "investors" who are losing money on dealing in abstract mathematical tokens?

The question is it property or currency?

[Revek]

Many goal of many crypto concerns I've read about, are about associating it with property, usually virtual property. Is treasury going to branch out in to the regulation of the crypto linked things like games and monkey bitmaps?

Re:

[Joce640k]

Is treasury going to branch out...?

The way the prices of monkey bitmaps are crashing? They won't need to.

It only takes one senator to block it... cryptos

[tekram]

Cryptos industry know this from just watching the last legislation to be signed. One senator could gut the whole regulatory process and it doesn't take much to buy one senator - about $1m in campaign contribution was the last price traded in Arizona. Cryptos industry is prepared to spend billions. This is the consequence of unlimited money in US politics and came directly from the 2010 SCOTUS and the Repubs' manipulation of the SCOTUS composition.

Breaking News!!!!!-+

[dicobalt]

Financial regulators determine currency system beloved by criminals is dangerous to our economic well-being. This revelation will have lasting consequences for crypto funds. We will have more info as this story develops 10 years ago.

Anyone Could See It

[Urganite]

Crypto was always doomed to failure as a currency because, as an "asset" that can be exchanged, it must de facto in terms of valuation and de jure in terms of taxation be converted into fiat monetary value in the jurisdiction of nearly every economy where it can be legally transacted with today. Take into account that the "coin" is not anything besides an electronic ledger entry and this makes all of the "decentralized" crypto"currencies" even lower in value than either otherwise valueless physical collecta

Wall Street is where the regulation is needed

[thesjaakspoiler]

Crypto is peanuts compared to all the 'official' financial institutions wrecking havoc on this country.
Only people who try to get rich quick are into crypto.

Why does cryptocurrency, which is global

[presidenteloco]

need to be accountable to the government of the United States of America?

The only things that US government should be able to regulate are US citizens' interactions with cryptocurrencies, and US-registered companies' interactions with cryptocurrency. As an example, Vitalik Buterin, originator and main governor of Ethereum, is Canadian. That's international tech you're talking about.

A threat to the powers that be

[Twinbee]

A threat to the Federal Reserve essentially printing money maybe. A currency they can't control is a currency they must destroy.

Oddly, I Agree - Blockchain is Subversive

[BrendaEM]

What society would we have there was no money for roads, schools, defense, and infrastructure?

Re:

[Kevin108]

Government has nothing it didn't first take by force from the person who earned it.

Everything government provides itself is great: pay, raises, benefits, retirement, etc.

How is everything it provides the people? Awful roads and infrastructure, terrible schools that funnel poor kids to prison, and a military sent to terrorize brown people in countries with oil.

Everything we want to build together we could still do - voluntarily and peacefully - without government.

The opposite of improvement

[Kevin108]

The federal government has already destroyed the US dollar. Letting them into crypto will yield similar results.

Terra was same value as Enron

[misnohmer]

Any scam that gets too big should of course get scrutinized by the government. Terra collapse happens to be similar to Enron going belly up in terms of market cap value (~$60bn). Of course the governments should be looking into such scams. Once a scam gets too big, they are never good for the economy as they come crashing down (like Enron, Terra, or other crypto pyramid schemes). Even Bre-X, which was less than a tenth of the value, had an impact on the market when it collapsed.