FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Timi Iwayemi, iwayemi@therevolvingdoorproject.org
Senators Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) today released a bill that seeks to create a regulatory framework for digital assets. The wide-ranging bill addresses regulatory jurisdiction, payment stablecoins, taxation and more. However, the Senators’ recommendations are fully aligned with the crypto industry and their structural reworking of financial regulators poses a threat to consumers, investors, and financial stability.
Revolving Door Project Senior Researcher Timi Iwayemi said: “The bipartisan decision to enshrine the significantly weaker Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) as the primary regulator of digital assets is an irresponsible handout to the crypto industry, which has spent prodigious amounts lobbying for this outcome. The CFTC’s sister agency, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), is clearly better positioned to oversee the industry’s volatile digital assets. It boasts much deeper financial and human resources. In 2021, the SEC’s $1.9 billion budget was over six times larger than the CFTC’s $300 million budget, and its 4,500 full-time staff is over six times more than the CFTC’s about 700 full-time workers.”
“The industry carve outs in this bill are a reminder of the danger of corporate influence in our political system. The crypto industry’s leading figures have spent enormous amounts to shield the industry from proper financial oversight. This money has been funneled towards revolving-door hiring of former CFTC officials, formation of super PACs, and congressional campaign donations. The industry has also bemoaned the SEC’s robust regulatory posture, decrying it with the self-defeating ostensible insult of ‘regulation by enforcement.’ That supposed criticism merely underlines the urgent need for the SEC to act. Existing law is clear, and it mandates that the SEC enforce existing statutory and regulatory limits that crypto bros have brazenly broken on the assumption that they will be able to buy clemency before they are sanctioned appropriately.”
“Instead of platforming industry-written legislation that weakens the executive branch’s power to protect the public interest and exposes millions to potential financial ruin, Congress should look to develop policies that would actually promote financial inclusion and access for underserved communities across the country.”
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