This post was originally published on this site
Senior Democrats in Congress again to telegraphed their skepticism of cryptocurrencies and digital-asset technology on Tuesday, when Chairman Sherrod Brown of Ohio said that the growing economy of digital assets are putting “Americans hard-earned money at risk,” during a Senate Banking Committee hearing Tuesday.
“A cottage industry of decentralized financial schemes has also cropped up alongside these alternative financial products, in the hopes of creating a parallel financial system with no rules, no oversight, and no limits,” Brown said. ” They claim to enable ‘transparency.’ Their backers talk about the ‘democratization of banking,’ but there’s nothing ‘democratic’ or ‘transparent’ about a shady, diffuse network of online funny money.”
Brown also attacked the notion that the growing crypto economic system would prove to be an alternative for Americans who are skeptical of the power and practices of Wall Street financial institutions.
“People don’t trust banks, and they especially don’t trust the biggest banks,” Brown said. “But as these technologies have developed, most of them seem to mirror — rather than to challenge — the Wall Street model.”
The Senate Banking Committee hearing was occurring simultaneously with a hearing of the a House Financial Services subcommittee hearing on central bank digital currencies, underscoring Congress’ dedication to exploring and potentially regulating digital assets broadly.
Also Tuesday morning, Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen in her capacity as Chair of the Financial Stability Oversight Council requesting that FSOC quickly develop a “comprehensive regulatory regime for cryptocurrencies.”
