US Senate Banking Chairman Says Banning Cryptocurrencies Is Very Difficult: Report

US Senator Sherrod Brown reportedly says banning cryptocurrencies is “very difficult” after presiding over a hearing on the collapse of FTX.

In an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press host Chuck Todd, the chair of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee is pushing for more regulations on the cryptocurrency market and has not ruled out backing an outright ban.

However, Brown acknowledges such an absolute prohibition may not be possible.

“Maybe banning it, although banning it is very difficult because it will go offshore and who knows how that will work.”

Brown, who held the FTX hearing on December 14th, calls the cryptocurrency market a “complicated, unregulated pot of money.”

Says Brown,

“I’ve spent much of the last eight years and a half in this job as chair of the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, educating my colleagues and trying to educate the public about crypto and the dangers that it presents to our security as a nation and the consumers that get hoodwinked by them.”

Brown says the issues around crypto are larger than just FTX.

In a letter released last month, Brown requested US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to convene with other regulators on “the development of legislation that would create authorities for regulators to have visibility into, and otherwise supervise, the activities of the affiliates and subsidiaries of crypto asset entities.”

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