Cash News
Bitcoin continued its postelection rally Monday, hitting a record price of more than $88,000. The asset has risen dramatically in value since Election Day, with investors expecting the next administration to be more crypto-friendly.
During his campaign, President-elect Donald Trump promised to make the U.S. “the crypto capital of the planet.” On Monday, The Washington Post reported he’s looking to make crypto-friendly appointments to regulatory agencies. Trump also has financial ties to the cryptocurrency industry through a new business called World Liberty Financial.
All this begs the question: At a moment when it’s riding high, what is the crypto industry asking for?
Paul Grewal, chief legal officer of Coinbase, one of the world’s largest crypto exchanges, is feeling good right now. “The biggest winner last week was crypto,” he said.
This comes after the Joe Biden administration took a pretty aggressive approach to the sector.
Grewal said Coinbase would like to see the new Congress pass laws that would more clearly define crypto assets and who is in charge of making the rules governing them.
He added that a lot of crypto companies want the same thing. “All of us are begging for sensible standards that would allow us to get back to building great products and services and spend less time and frankly, less money, arguing over legal definitions and statutes.”
Coinbase and another big crypto company, Circle, also want to see a law around stablecoins. These are digital currencies whose value is linked to an existing asset — often a fiat currency such as the dollar. Circle issues stablecoins that include digital dollars and digital euros.
Dante Disparte, chief strategy officer and head of global policy for Circle, said a U.S. law would mean existing international laws wouldn’t dictate how digital dollars are regulated.
“Because for so many operators around the world, you know the real missing link has been U.S. legal and regulatory clarity,” he said.
This desire for rules represents a maturing of the industry after some in it have faced legal action, said Gil Luria with D.A. Davidson.
“Early on in the crypto industry, people didn’t want regulation because part of the ethos was this decentralized, we can do whatever we want, wherever we want. And then people started going to jail, and everybody realized, well, I can’t actually do whatever I want whenever I want,” he said.
Luria said clear new rules will help industry players figure out what they can and can’t do.
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