US Lawmaker Says ‘Too Much Money and Power’ Behind Crypto to Ban It – Regulation Bitcoin News

U.S. Representative Brad Sherman says Congress has not banned crypto because “there’s too much money and power behind it.” He elaborated: “Money for lobbying and money for campaign contributions works, or people wouldn’t do it, and that’s why we haven’t banned crypto.”

US Lawmaker on Regulation and Why Congress Won’t Ban Crypto

Brad Sherman, a congressman from California, shared his opinions on cryptocurrency and regulation with The Los Angeles Times in an interview that was published Sunday.

California lawmaker and U.S. senator from California chairs the House subcommittee for investor protection. He wants cryptocurrency to be banned but doesn’t believe Congress will. “I don’t think we’re going to [ban crypto] anytime soon,” he told the news outlet.

“Money for lobbying and money for campaign contributions works, or people wouldn’t do it, and that’s why we haven’t banned crypto,” Sherman explained, elaborating:

We didn’t ban it at the beginning because we didn’t realize it was important, and we didn’t ban it now because there’s too much money and power behind it.

The congressman is not only concerned about defrauding individual investors, but also sees cryptocurrency as a threat for the U.S. national security. He believes crypto poses a systemic threat, enables criminals, and undermines the U.S. dollar’s dominance.

He is most concerned about Tornado Cash, a crypto-mixing service that uses Tornado Cash as its currency. In August, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) banned the Ethereum mixing application, claiming that the mixer has helped North Korean hackers such as the hacking syndicate known as Lazarus Group.

Sherman said that Sherman cannot stop investors from recklessly spending their money. “It is hard to be running the subcommittee dedicated to investor protection in a country in which people want to wager on [meme coins],” the U.S. lawmaker opined, asserting:

The cryptocurrency is a type of meme that you buy and invest in in the hope you will be able to sell it before it crashes. That’s the nice thing about a Ponzi scheme.

Sherman began to talk about crypto regulation, even if there was no ban. Liken crypto to a stock or security, he believes that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) should oversee the crypto sector, citing the regulator’s size, expertise, and aggressive enforcement actions.

To make the Commodity Futures Trading Commission the principal regulator for crypto, however, there are three new bills in Congress.

Sherman called on the SEC in July to pursue major cryptocurrency exchanges trading XRP. According to the Securities Watchdog, it has taken 97 crypto related enforcement actions since January. According to the regulator, it almost doubled the size its crypto enforcement unit in May.

Let us know what you think of the comments made by U.S. Rep. Brad Sherman. Please leave your comments below.

Kevin Helms

Kevin is a graduate of Austrian Economics. He discovered Bitcoin in 2011, and has been an advocate ever since. He is interested in Bitcoin security and open-source software, network effects, and the intersection of cryptography and economics.