The former Chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) reportedly says that Senator Elizabeth Warren and her anti-crypto agenda are losing their battle.
In a new interview with Forbes, former CFTC Chairman Christopher Giancarlo reveals that he’s bullish on the future of digital assets and says that the anti-crypto wing is a “shrinking iceberg.”
According to Giancarlo, the legislative climate in the US is shifting toward crypto assets, as evidenced by both chambers of Congress passing the reversal of SAB 121.
SAB 121 is a guidance note from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) published in March 2022 which tells entities how to account for and safeguard their digital assets.
Last week, the bill overturning the SEC guideline passed the Senate in a 60-38 vote.
But Giancarlo notes that the White House may veto the bill, a move traditional banks would likely back.
“I think [the passage of SAB 121 reversal] says that the Elizabeth Warren wing is a shrinking iceberg…
Notwithstanding some parts of the banking system that may be resistant to digital asset innovation, forcing them to reserve a hundred percent against their holdings effectively means banks can’t be a player in this innovation. I think the rejection of this is there.
So the White House may veto this, but I think it puts them in an increasingly untenable position against the tide of history, against the tide of innovation.”
Moving on to FIT21, a more recent crypto bill that would give the CFTC regulatory jurisdiction over digital asset commodities, Giancarlo says that it could work since the CFTC has shown it can regulate non-wholesale markets before.
“The reason why [the CFTC is] mostly a wholesale regulator is because it oversees futures markets, which, for the most part, have professional traders in them. It doesn’t oversee spot markets where you’ve got a lot of retail traders.
This act would give CFTC market supervision regulation power over spot markets for crypto and not just the derivative markets.
Therefore, the CFTC would find itself, to some degree, engaging in retail marketplace supervision. My mind has evolved on this in part because the CFTC already has certain pockets of retail supervision, and it’s shown itself to be able to handle them very well.”
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