11/10/2022
HOW THE U.S. WILL TRY TO REGULATE CRYPTOCURRENCY
Lately, a series of new legislative and enforcement actions against digital asset and their stakeholders have provided important insight into how the U.S. cryptocurrency scene could unravel in the future.
Here are our four highlights on this topic:
The White House's new cryptocurrency framework demonstrates that regulation is coming to the digital asset space.
After the collapse of the TerraUSD stablecoin in May, several members of Congress pledged to draft a regulatory framework for stablecoins with the intention of protecting U.S. investors. So, non-bank stablecoin issuers would register with the Federal Reserve.
We recently had information about how the U.S. intends to regulate cryptocurrencies. Especially digital assets linked to the dollar.
The move to sanction the Tornado Cash protocol for decentralization and privacy is the first time a government agency has sanctioned a smart contract (code that lives on the blockchain).
Several crypto legal experts consider this an unconstitutional decision and will likely challenge it in court.
In July, the SEC accused cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase of listing "at least nine" tokens that it believes should be classified as securities. It also emerged that it is making some investigations into all U.S.-based cryptocurrency exchanges after SEC believed several platforms were violating securities laws by trading with their own customers.
Regulation of cryptocurrencies is coming to the United States, and changes are likely to happen in the future of the industry.
The SEC wants to regulate Ethereum transactions within the U.S. because there are more Ethereum nodes located in the U.S. than in any other country. If the court accepts this argument, the SEC could seek to establish jurisdiction over all Ethereum transactions involving tokens it considers securities, regardless of the location of the transaction counterparties.
