US Senate Banking Committee Chair says SEC, CFTC should consider ban on cryptocurrencies

• US Senate Banking Committee Chair Sherrod Brown has suggested that financial markets regulators SEC and CFTC should consider crypto ban. 
• The Banking Committee Chairman cited FTX exchange’s collapse as an example of why a crypto ban is worth consideration. 
• Brown believes cryptocurrencies are dangerous and a threat to national security, virtual assets exacerbate cybercrime, drug trafficking and terror financing. 

US Senate Banking Committee Chairman, Sherrod Brown, believes the US’s two primary financial regulators, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Commodities and Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), should consider banning cryptocurrencies. The US Senate Banking Committee has jurisdiction over the banking industry and financial institutions.

Also read: Samuel Bankman-Fried arrested, charged by the US Government with money laundering, wire and securities fraud

US Senate Banking Committee Chair Brown expects SEC and CFTC to ban cryptocurrencies

The US Senate Banking Committee, a watchdog with jurisdiction over financial institutions in the United States is familiar with the threat posed by cryptocurrencies. In response to the recent collapse and bankruptcy of FTX exchange, Chairman Sherrod Brown recommended that the US SEC and CFTC consider a “ban on cryptocurrencies.”

Brown made an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on December 18, and said:

We want them [the SEC and CFTC] to do what they need to do at the same time, maybe banning it, although banning it is very difficult because it would go offshore, and who knows how that would work.

Brown has called for a government-wide assessment of a cryptocurrency ban through all regulatory agencies. The US SEC has been “particularly aggressive,” and the US government needs to move forward with a ban on crypto, argues Brown. 

FTX exchange collapse birthed the idea of crypto ban among Senators 

Brown cites the FTX exchange’s shock collapse as an example of why a ban on virtual assets is worth consideration, he believes it “is only one huge part of the problem.”

Digital assets are considered “dangerous” and a “threat to national security,” Brown says, citing North Korean cybercriminal activity, drug and human trafficking and the financing of terror as some of the problems that crypto has exacerbated.

The Banking Committee chairman has been skeptical of crypto for over a year now, and consistently voiced his concerns on stablecoin issuance and cryptocurrency advertising and marketing campaigns.

Brown applauded the US Department of Justice for filing criminal charges against former FTX exchange CEO Samuel Bankman-Fried on December 13. 

Not all US Senators agree with Brown’s crypto ban

US Senator Tom Emmer believes that FTX’s fall wasn’t a “crypto failure” but rather a failure caused by centralized actors, he expressed his views on the aftermath of FTX exchange’s collapse on November 23.

Emmer argues that crippling regulation would stifle industry innovation in the US and the country could lose its global market dominance in crypto. Interestingly, the incoming Chair of the House Committee on Financial Service, Patrick McHenry, is pro-crypto. McHenry called for a delay on crypto tax changes in order to seek more clarification on the original “poorly drafted” tax provision.

---