Biden’s new plan for dealing with crypto is more of the same

The White House released its first official framework lays out its plans for managing digital assets, namely cryptocurrencies. Although overall scheme authored by the executive branch lays out some new moves and directions for agencies to aspire to, all in all it seems to offer little actual guidance other than “keep doing what you’re doing” and doesn’t answer the bigger questions of who has jurisdiction over the various elements of Web3 regulation.

Citing a $3 trillion global market capitalization and the 16% of American adults who have bought in, the Biden administration said it needs to introduce some form of regulatory oversight, especially since the crypto crash in May cut millions of people off their crypto. investments and then put the entire industry into a lingering crypto winter. This new directive comes after President Joe Biden signed an order earlier this year told the federal government to finally wrap its head around just what crypto is.

Perhaps the most interesting move to come from Biden’s executive order directs the Treasury Department to real weed out the possibility of some kind of “central bank digital currency”, which practically pulls a move similar to Xzibit and tells you “geezI put some centralized currencies in your decentralized currencies, so when you keep them in centralized banks, you can use a centralized bank.”

The report says Biden will consider asking Cprogress to apply laws against unlicensed money transmission to crypto. It also mentions that the Bank Secrecy Act may apply to crypto exchanges and NFT platforms, forcing these lenders (who will still claim from heaven to hell that they are not banks) to report suspicious transactions to the Treasury Department. Biden also said he would call Cproceeding to let the DOJ prosecute digital value crimes “in any jurisdiction where a victim of these crimes is found.”

Unfortunately, the Ministry of Finance’s slate of the reports dealing with crypto published Friday mostly call for financial law enforcement to use “already issued guidance” to deal with protect consumers and markets. Well, they recommend establishing “a federal framework for payment regulation” and encouraging the “use of instant payment systems”, which if you are already in so-called “decentralized finance” or DeFi, this proposal already sounds like a non-starter. Nothing in the finance department Action plan for digital assets seems very new other than updating the BSA regulations.

In addition, the Ministry of Justice as well announced On Friday, they created a nationwide “Digital Asset Coordinator Network” led by the existing National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team to help federal law enforcement get a better grip on digital assets. The DAC apparently held its first meeting on 8 September.

Well, the president isn’t exactly blowing the top off crypto bros when he called for more enforcement of existing laws from the Securities and Exchange Commission and The Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Unfortunately, it does not elaborate on which agency has jurisdiction over various aspects of the cryptosphere. SEC Chairman Pat Gensler has repeatedly set demands over large parts of the crypto realm, but have mentioned the most popular cryptobitcoin may not be under his jurisdiction. Still, CFTC leadership like Commissioner Caroline Pham have complained on the SEC’s “regulation by enforcement” to charge a former Coinbase employee with insider trading.

The White House cites reports from executive agencies promoting the need to create “normal efficiency standards for cryptocurrency mining.” The Treasury Department notes how some of the largest mining operations have become significantly concentrated companies, adding that there are significant security risks if bad actors can attack mining pools with an over-50% control over the blockchain network. At the same time, neither report hints at any real regulation or legislation to combat the power of crypto miners.

So really the question is what changes with this new framework other than emphasizing existing laws. That could lead to a greater push to combat the flooded crypto scene fraud. Sometimes it feels like every day there is a new story about crypto users or platforms scammed of bad actors or hacks, which has not changed even with the increased attention to the cryptosphere by federal law enforcement.