American Regulation Isn't Holding Back Crypto. It's American Provincialism.
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American Regulation Isn't Holding Back Crypto. It's American Provincialism.
The discussion about crypto regulation in the United States is not only reductive, but annoyingly provincial. Tune into a Congressional hearing and you will mostly get gripes and finger-pointing. The only mention of life outside the United States is a vague assertion that regulatory enforcement, or simple confusion, is pushing “innovation” to other countries. This week, Congressman Patrick McHenry (R-NC), who chairs the House Financial Services Committee, told the crowd at Coindesk’s Consensus conference that he plans to introduce a new bill on crypto regulation in two months, following hearings that his committee and the Agriculture Committee will hold in May.
Joining McHenry onstage was Senator Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), generally considered the most crypto-friendly federal legislator, who said: “Several jurisdictions are ahead of us. We are falling way behind. These countries are telling us to catch up.”
She’s not entirely wrong. But almost no one discusses what, specifically, US regulation might learn from these other jurisdictions, and whether the efforts that have been unsuccessfully coughed up by Congress in recent years, by Lummis and others, profitably borrow from them.
There is a fundamental untruth at the heart of the American crypto regulatory “debate”—maybe better labeled a standoff—which is deceptively wrapped in a truth.