Hundreds of thousands of investors have just pulled billions from their collective e-pockets. Yet crypto remains the untouchable queen in the antiquated marble halls of the US Capitol.
To be sure, a handful of lawmakers are waving — or at least holding limp — red flags after cryptocurrency exchange FTX imploded earlier this month. Even if hundreds of millions of dollars in happiness, retirement, and even basic health care were erased from a brother’s sly eye in the blink of an eye, Congress is cool, calm, and collectively, well, silly.
“It’s not really an issue I know a whole lot about,” said Bernie Sanders, the independent U.S. senator from Vermont who plays a Democrat every four years.
“I don’t really understand the technology,” said US Senator Josh Hawley, a progressive Republican from Missouri.
House Democratic leaders seem to be on the same (albeit outdated) page. When asked about plans to deal with the volatile cryptocurrency world following the collapse of FTX, U.S. Representative Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York), current chairman of the House Democratic Caucus and (presumed) future leader of House Democrats, is subdued . “Well, I think that’s an issue that I assume will be taken up by the Financial Services Committee,” he says.
In conversation with lawmakers, Congress appears to continue to grapple with the definition of what “money” is, even as most of us have gone far beyond the country’s representatives and continue to question when we’re going to get our money – digital or otherwise – back . And despite the current crypto collapse, according to Jeffries and many other powerful party leaders, there is time to kill.
“There are a whole host of issues that I think we want to solve, and I imagine the situation regarding the cryptocurrency industry will be one of them,” added Jeffries.
According to US Senator Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyoming), the rise of cryptocurrencies – and the dangers associated with it – has taken Congress by surprise.
“I think many members of Congress have assumed that the digital asset industry could be on the backburner because it is immature,” says Lummis. “It is growing faster than people realise. And with Elon Musk announcing that he might start using Twitter as a payment platform, I mean, this industry is much more mature than people realize. It’s time. It’s time to regulate. It’s time to put up sideboards here.”
Lummis is not just a Republican. She is Wyoming, a state striving to become the “crypto capital” of the US. She was a founding member of the House Freedom Caucus. Like the caucus itself, she transitioned to MAGA in recent years, but her libertarian streaks remain pronounced — and crypto is best ever since she cut gold bars for the laissez-faire Lummises of the world.
As anti-regulation as Lummis is, she has always called for restrictions to be imposed — “regulation” even, though that’s still considered a four-letter word in most Republican circles. At least she wants bumpers.
“There will still be companies dealing in digital assets that go out of business even after they are regulated, but at least we have consumer protection and reporting – and most importantly, segregating the assets of the clients from the assets of the financial institution. ‘ says Lummis. “What happened with FTX is they lent assets from clients.”
