An Exploration of Cryptocurrency Regulation and Policy in the US and Abroad.
The fall of FTX changed the game for crypto in Washington, D.C.
As CoinDesk’s Jesse Hamilton writes today, Congress is ready to clamp down on the industry. Members there are shocked by the size of the crypto exchange’s collapse, comparing it to the fall of the Enron energy company, and they’re embarrassed at being taken in by Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) and his political contributions.
For two years, SBF was crypto’s number one proxy in D.C., an educator and schmoozer who charmed everyone with his youth and scruffy look. He was the source, along with his FTX colleagues, of political funding for one in three members of Congress (196 senators and representatives), according to a CoinDesk investigation. That makes the impact of FTX’s fall in the Congress all the more powerful, Hamilton writes.
The influence of FTX and SBF runs wide, befitting a company that wanted to bestride the world. We’ll publish reports from the European Union, South Korea, Japan, India, Singapore, Hong Kong and several other places as part of CoinDesk’s Policy Week, which starts today and runs through Jan. 27.
And we’ll have opinion pieces from a range of contributors. We hope you enjoy this comprehensive look at crypto policy at a reckoning moment for the crypto industry.
‘What Was Gary Gensler Really Doing?’: Rep. Tom Emmer on FTX, the SEC and What’s Next for Crypto in Congress
The House Whip (a.k.a. the “Crypto King of Congress”) blames over-centralization and old-fashioned fraud for FTX’s collapse, not crypto. As federal legislators consider new crypto legislation, can he persuade his colleagues of the same?
The SEC and CFTC are unlikely to issue new rules covering crypto this year. But, if they did, calls from policymakers to regulate through rulemaking rather than enforcement offer a useful way forward, says Michael Selig, an attorney at Willkie Farr & Gallagher.
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