Showing posts with label crypto laws. Show all posts
Showing posts with label crypto laws. Show all posts

Crypto Set To DISRUPT the 2024 Election: US Crypto Ownership Now 52 MILLION People Strong, As Industry Prepares $70+ MILLION To Boost Pro-Crypto Candidates...

The crypto industry in the United States is making sure their voice is heard before the 2024 elections.  Their primary method of accomplishing this - a Political Action Committee (Super PAC), which is an organization able to raise and spend an unlimited amount of money on political activism - such as funding ads for, or against specific candidates. 

Going by the name 'Fairshake PAC' they have only one goal - a reasonable and clear regulatory landscape for crypto. This means companies no longer having to guess if SEC believes a 50 year old law written before the internet existed will be applied to crypto.

The Super-PAC Already has an Impressive $78 Million Raised, With Elections Nearly a Year Away, the Final Number is Expected to be Much Higher...

The PAC's financial backing comes from a coalition of "20 leading companies and voices in the industry" which includes notable names such as Coinbase, Circle, Kraken, the Winklevoss brothers, Ripple, Messari, Andreessen Horowitz, and others.

Fairshake's mission is clear: "To champion leaders who actively support progressive innovation, encompassing blockchain technology and the broader crypto industry." More specifically, the leaders elected in 2024 will be the ones to sign crypto regulations into law, so making sure these regulations will be fair, reasonable, and well-defined is important. 

With 52 Million Americans Now Owning Digital Assets, We Now Have The Power To Sway Elections... 

If just 14% of crypto owners see crypto as their main factor in deciding who to vote for, it would be enough to flip the who won the popular vote in the last 2 elections.

They're also willing to extend support to candidates from both political parties, emphasizing the inclusive nature of their agenda.

It's Easy To Instantly React Negatively to Anything Involving Money and Politics... 

It's important to consider the details - this is far from some secretive group of wealthy elite quietly pushing for something to bring them even more wealth. 

The community of crypto traders and investors is too large to not to have a seat at the table. While the major industry players are funding this Super PAC, crypto's popularly is how they're able to afford it.

From companies with hundreds of employees, to the independent crypto trader - we all want crypto regulations that treat us fairly, and are written by people who understand the fundamentals. 

Unfortunately an Alarming Number of Lawmakers Lack Even a Basic Understanding...

This isn't a matter of perception, members of the current US Congress are officially part of the oldest congress in entire US history - and nothing seems to highlight this generational gap more than tech related issues. Many lawmakers come from the 'senior citizen' demographic, they have held seats in Congress and the Senate for decades, and on multiple occasions where they were expected to announce their retirement, ended up announcing their run for re-election.

If there's any advice I'd give those who will be representing crypto in Washington DC, it would be that they take the time to figure out how to explain crypto to people who don't know how to send an e-mail. These politicians have proven themselves to be a 'high risk' when it comes to believing misinformation and alarmist headlines. In many cases you can find them discussing their struggles with technology in their own words - they called computers and smartphones 'confusing' and 'challenging', and joke about relying on their grandchildren for tech assistance.

We Need to Educate Lawmakers, Before They Make Any New Laws...

Candidates and their campaign managers will be aware of which industries have the largest budgets in the current election cycle, which is why a couple experts/VIPs from crypto industry can ask for, and successfully setup meetings in various lawmaker's offices. Here the pro-crypto case can be made, common anti-crypto misinformation can be corrected, and the politician can ask any questions they may have.

It is essential we the opportunity to present straightforward facts to lawmakers before they cast votes that can significantly impact the future of the crypto industry.

A perfect example of the kind of senseless challenges the industry faces is Brad Sherman, a Democrat from California.  He's been there 10 years, will be running for re-election in 2024, and holds the extreme opinion that crypto should be banned entirely. He is unable to mention 'Bitcoin' without immediately framing it as something only useful in 'illegal activities' -  his anti-crypto statements begun at the same time his largest campaign donor was a credit card processing company facing charges of illegally providing services to black market online gambling sites.

For Example, Here's How I would Lobby a Politician who Believes Crypto is Just used by the 'Bad Guys'...

Crypto's use in various illegal activities is a common topic for a politician to have distorted or completely inaccurate information on. This is something where properly presenting the facts shut down  immediately - between paper money, credit cards, checks, and cryptocurrency, crypto is actually the least-used in unlawful transactions.

Think crypto fraud has a larger total price tag after seeing multiple headlines over the past year about a hack where losses totaled in the millions?  Well, crypto fraud was the source of about $2.5 billion in losses last year according to the FBI.  Sure, that is a lot...unless you compare it to anything else.  The lowest-tech payment method, paper checks, was used in over $8 billion of fraud last year.  Credit Card fraud totaled around $3.5 billion - meaning crypto fraud was the lowest among all payment methods.

Crypto fraud peaked during and shortly after Bitcoin's first major bull run, people rushed to get into crypto, and scammers cashed in on people hoping to get a piece of the action.  After learning the hard way, nowadays, most people know no one can promise 'daily guaranteed profits' and companies that have no information on who owns and operates them may be hiding this info for a reason.

This leads to another powerful stat lawmakers need to be aware of - as crypto usage has grown, the annual rate of illegal/fraudulent transactions has gone down, for almost 3 years now. The biggest drop was this year, 2023 - and the firm that works with the FBI on crypto fraud cases is the source for this data.

Once this fact is established, any anti-crypto argument based on fighting crime or stopping fraud  sounds ridiculous... unless they're anti-credit card and anti-check as well. 

In Closing...

The crypto industry is ready to make its voice heard in the 2024 elections, and there is power in numbers. But the number more important than the amount of money the industry can spend in Washington DC, will be the 52 million crypto owners in US who will decide what standards, and how much effort  we demand from our leaders. If united, this is who ultimately will determine winners and losers.

---------------
Author: Ross Davis
Silicon Valley Newsroom
GCP | Breaking Crypto News

If The US Doesn't Take The Lead On Crypto, China Will...

us and china cryptocurrency policy
Even casual viewers of cable news are familiar with commercials featuring actor William Devane – usually golfing or horseback riding – exhorting them to invest in precious metals. Lately, Devane has been joined in this pursuit by financial educator Robert Kiyosaki, creator of the “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” series. The prevalence of these ads should not be surprising. In these volatile times, the Trump administration has spent big and printed money. (The United States is not alone in borrowing and printing its way out of this pandemic.) There is no reason to expect different behavior under Joe Biden.

It’s no wonder that alternative stores of value are flourishing. Days ago, the cryptocurrency Bitcoin reached yet another all-time high, just as it became clear that a Biden-Harris administration was a fait accompli. But while Bitcoin is the best-known digital currency, it is only a small part of a technological shift that could satisfy our demand for safer, cheaper, and faster ways of doing business in times of crisis and disruption. Bitcoin’s underlying technology, blockchain – a sort of shared, secure ledger of transactions between networked computers – has applications ranging from supply-chain management to securing international payments. It could be “a game changer for the global economy,” according to JPMorgan Chase. In fact, the investment giant started using its own JPM Coin in October to move investor money across its global financial platforms. Consulting firm Gartner forecasts that the business value-add from blockchain will blow past $3 trillion by the end of this new decade.

The industry powering all this change, however, is finding it harder to stay in the United States due to Washington’s dysfunction. Silicon Valley start-ups are investing billions in research and development, but there is still no clear set of rules to help them bring products to market. Congress has punted on writing a regulatory framework, and the country’s oversight agencies are – as usual – fighting over turf. Experts say that this “regulatory chaos” is suppressing American innovation while other market centers like Britain and Singapore have quickly updated their rules to lure American blockchain developers away, while Beijing scrambles to establish tech dominance.

Roslyn Layton of the American Enterprise Institute sent the Senate a blunt message this month: regulators, lacking guidance, are killing innovation. China could soon overtake us, she warned, unless the Senate holds Biden to his promises of “technocratic competence” and firm economic competition with China.

At least eight regulatory agencies are fighting over who gets to play U.S. crypto cop. Without any direction, regulators “copy-paste their bureaucracy on anything that moves,” Layton observed. The Securities and Exchange Commission is applying archaic 1930s rules that “never imagined blockchain solutions,” comparing all digital assets to securities no matter how they are designed or used.

Critics like Layton point to China’s new “digital yuan” – the country’s sole legal cryptocurrency – as a disturbing signal that the Chinese are gaining on us. The People’s Bank of China formally issued it in October and has enticed 2 million Chinese to bid on U.S. $10 million worth of the official token, says Wayne Brough of the Innovation Defense Foundation. Big American companies including Starbucks, McDonald’s, and Subway have embraced China’s new currency. France, Sweden, Switzerland, and Japan are developing central bank digital currencies of their own. Brough frets that through inaction, the U.S. will “blunder our way out of winning a race that we were born to win.” 

George Nethercutt, former Republican congressman from Washington State, warned in The Hill that Washington’s neglect could create “a needless trainwreck.” China and Singapore are paving the way for their own blockchain industries, he wrote, “while the U.S. is struggling with a coin shortage, stimulus check complications, and an obvious dearth of understanding on Capitol Hill about what a cryptocurrency even is.” This is “embarrassing” for the most technologically developed country in the world, he lamented.

Layton and Nethercutt point the finger at outgoing SEC Chairman Jay Clayton, who, Layton said, made “a deliberate lack of regulatory clarity” the “cornerstone of his crypto policy approach.” Clayton demonstrated “no understanding for the need for a regulatory framework” with his “notoriously guarded approach” to blockchain solutions, Nethercutt added, “significantly constraining American innovators.”

Clayton empowered the SEC by treating any digital asset as a “security,” justifying enforcement actions with a 1946 Supreme Court ruling. Clayton’s SEC lowered the boom on “utility tokens” – a core feature of business software using blockchain – according to Layton, even if they “had no resemblance to investment contracts.” This treatment extended to utility token XRP, the third-highest-valued cryptocurrency in the world, used by American developers like Ripple and R3 to power the kind of payment systems that JPMorgan has already rolled out. Just by putting this token under “a bewilderingly persistent enforcement threat,” the SEC hurt every developer on the XRP ledger. Clayton preserved his own agency’s power “but steadily eroded U.S. leadership as the best place to do business.”

It remains to be seen what Biden thinks of Clayton’s view of unlimited power over digital assets, or whether Biden’s promise of bipartisan cooperation will extend to ending the regulatory chaos.  Republicans have spent the last four years slashing regulations and reining in the administrative state and should understand that China can’t be allowed to win the crypto race. Senate Democrats on the Banking Committee like Elizabeth Warren and Sherrod Brown should remember that a president of their party, Bill Clinton, enacted the regulatory framework for e-commerce in 1997. It created millions of American businesses, reaching tens of millions of customers, and spawned a long list of occupations that had never existed before.

Coming together to vet Biden’s SEC pick on crypto policy and move the country closer to a clear set of rules would be a win-win for both parties and for the U.S. economy. Our competitors abroad can never beat us on innovation – unless we continue to shoot ourselves in the foot.

-----------
Guest Contributor: Bill Zeiser