Congress Begins to Consider Regulations on Digital Currencies

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H OH! Time to start paying attention. The U.S. Congress has discovered..........cryptocurrencies. Yup, having nothing better to do (immigration, guns, budgets, investigations, etc.....so boring) the lawmakers have been reading the paper and discovered bitcoin, et al. And what's a bored lawmaker to do? REGULATE. Aides are running around gathering information to "brief" lawmakers on WHAT cryptos are and then they will write rules to make sure any naive innocent investors could possibly lose money. Gasp!! People may actually lose money in digital assets? Lets fix it, BUT make sure we regulate fairly and exempt ourselves from any of those pesky rules. Kidding aside (but why?), proper regulation IS needed and will make the crypto world much more legitimate. Write, write write.

(Bill Taylor/Managing Editor)

Reuters

Bipartisan momentum is growing in the Senate and House of Representatives for action to address the risks posed by virtual currencies to investors and the financial system, they said.

Even free-market Republican conservatives, normally wary of government red tape, said regulation could be needed if cryptocurrencies threaten the U.S. economy.

“There’s no question about the fact that there is a need for a regulatory framework,” said Republican Senator Mike Rounds, a Senate Banking Committee member.

Digital assets currently fall into a jurisdictional gray area between the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve and individual states.

Much of the concern on Capitol Hill is focused on speculative trading and investing in cryptocurrencies, leading some lawmakers to push for digital assets to be regulated as securities and subject to the SEC’s investor protection rules...."