First they ignore you...
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." This quote is attributed to Mahatma Ghandi, and often pops into my head with talking about crypto. Right now we're in the "then they fight you" stage in the US, which will do nothing more than cripple the economy in the future compared to other more open-minded countries. You might know by now that I'm a huge cryptocurrency and blockchain advocate. I've talked about this time and time again, and written numerous articles over the years.
Living in the US has forced me to accept the fact that the US regulators are going to do everything possible to stop crypto adoption. At what cost, though? Well, there are going to be a lot of negative effects in my opinion. Like I talked about in a 3speak video (I'm too lazy to link it, go check my page) recently, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodities Futures Trading Commission are going to severely cripple the economy. With the help of the government, of course.
We've already started to see major blockchain corporations and exchanges like Coinbase start looking to move operations outside the US. Why? Because the lack of clear crypto regulations in the US is laughable. Take a look at this clip from the SEC's recent hearing on cryptocurrencies in the US. Gary Gensler is the smooth-brained worm you see in the clip, and he is (was) the Chairman of the SEC.
He was asked if it has become more difficult for the digital asset industry to access financial products in the US in the past 2 years. He literally couldn't even answer the questions, and the obvious answer is yes. He was asked if he and the SEC played a role in making it nearly impossible for web3 businesses to access financial services in the US. Of course, he couldn't answer that question either because the obvious answer is yes.
There have been no new regulatory rules from the SEC in the past 2 years that do anything to help with compliance for these companies. To that same token, they have levied 55 different regulatory actions against digital assets. This is exactly why multiple large businesses are looking outside the US for a safe haven to operate. They are driving away billions, if not trillions, of dollars from the economy and pushing those dollars to other countries. Yet they claim to be looking out for the best interest of the US citizens.
Where was the SEC to save the retail investors when FTX collapsed? If their primary objective is to protect the retail investors in the US, where they hell were they to help the people affected? The same question could be asked regarding the collapse of Terra Luna. Where was the protection for those retail investors? Oh yeah... They don't have any because the US hates crypto. This smooth-brained worm has been quoted from the SEC website saying that "staking as a service companies" such as Kraken, must register with the SEC. Did they provide any guidance on how to do so? You guessed it. Nope.
Mr. Emmer went on to as him if he agreed with the quote, "the SEC needs additional congressional authorities to prevent transactions, products, and platforms from falling between the regulatory cracks". To which he replied with another non-answer. Mr. Emmer was asking if he agreed with something that he stated, himself. Gensler stated he needed more authority to regulate stable-coins, not all cryptocurrencies. He can't remember his own fucking lies, and it's pretty obvious that he has no idea what he's talking about.
"Existing SEC rules make no sense for blockchain-based companies, and following them would actually kill these businesses." Emmer is not wrong with this statement. He is absolutely right. The existing regulatory framework literally can't work for blockchain-based companies. It's my opinion that there needs to be a whole different set of rules on regulations for blockchain-based companies, but that would require them to bring in people that know how blockchain works.
In another clip, Gensler was asked if Ethereum was a security, and he refused to give an answer. This is because the SEC says ETH is a security, and the CFTC says it's a commodity. Which is it? The regulatory authorities are filled with nothing but clueless boomers that hate change, and that has become more clear by the day. There's nothing wrong with being older, but if you're in one of these positions you should be required to have at least a general understanding of what you're actually trying to regulate.
There are a ton of ways that the US could benefit from being more open to crypto adoption. One of those is more financial inclusion. There are a lot of people that do not have access to bank accounts or other traditional financial products for a number of different reasons. Cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology allow literally anyone on the planet to participate financially. Even if you don't have identification, you can create a crypto wallet and start transacting in seconds. Think about third-world countries with limited access to infrastructure. Some are largely un-banked.
With the push to get "non-compliant blockchain companies" out of the US, they are directly impacting the economy by way of missing out on taxes. I hate taxes just as much as the next guy, but I pay them as I should because... I have to. If there were a way for the average person or business to easily pay taxes based on their usage of cryptocurrencies, the US would be raking in money. I'd wager that less than 1% of people that have every used crypto have the technical know-how to accurately pay taxes on those assets.
Cryptocurrencies and blockchain-based companies are here to stay. Whether the US likes it or not, people are going to use them, and people are going to invest in them. Even if the services are blocked in the country, people are smart enough at this point to use VPNs and such to skirt those rules. Trying to kill crypto or move it out of the country is a pointless effort that will do nothing more than cripple the economy in the future.
Have a GM
Are you posting on LeoFinance Threads every day? Check out @gmfrens, the cross-blockchain social NFT project that was born and raised on Threads. You can use the #gmfrens tag and mine 6.9 GM every single day. All you need is a WAX wallet.
all art used in this post was generated by AI
Posted Using LeoFinance Alpha
