American officials have been saying some interesting things about cryptocurrency regulation as blockchain technologies take off around the world.
Coindesk reports today on comments made by Office of Comptroller of Currency head Michael Hsu suggesting establishing a “regulatory perimeter” on crypto through collaboration between agencies.
“It really comes down to coordinating across the agencies,” Hsu reportedly said. “Just in talking to some of my peers there is interest in coordinating a lot more of these things.”
As reported, earlier in May the OCC, Federal Reserve and FDIC jointly created a “sprint” policy team to work on this issue.
“The OCC is an independent bureau of the U.S. Department of the Treasury,” explains Coindesk writer Sebastian Sinclair in related coverage. “Its role is to charter, regulate and supervise all national banks and federal savings associations in the country as well as federal branches and agencies of foreign banks.”
Interestingly, while some might interpret these comments as a call to begin integrating crypto into our financial landscape, at least one private sector executive, Brian Brooks, who was a former OCC, has made comments against tighter regulation, which to many implies that he sees the call as a foray into more rules for crypto. Binance, for its part, has been a leading exchange for safe crypto dealing, and careful to stay within the bounds of U.S. regulatory frameworks.
“I don’t think we need 50 regulations instead of two, but what we do need is clarity about what’s allowed,” Brooks said last December. “We need some guidance, for example, about whether banks can connect directly to blockchains as payment networks. The answer has to be yes. We need answers about [whether] banks can custody cryptocurrency so that institutions feel comfortable adopting. And you saw what happened when we gave that clarity.”
It’s also interesting that at the time these statements are being made, no less than four companies are introducing exchange traded products on European stock markets, showing that while the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has been anything but accommodating to crypto, European regulators have been in some ways more likely to approve certain types of derivatives.
Look for more of these stories as U.S. officials come to terms with the reality: that crypto is here to stay.
