” . Capital markets • News Will Senate ignore bipartisan ex-regulator proposals for crypto infrastructure? 31 seconds agoby Ledger Insights Two former regulators have been making proposals for US crypto infrastructure regulations for years. Unfortunately, their pragmatic suggestions appear to be falling on deaf ears. Today Timothy Massad, the former Democrat Chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is again providing testimony, this time in a Senate Banking Committee hearing. He and former Republican SEC Chair Jay Clayton first proposed a joint self regulatory organization (SRO) tightly controlled by the CFTC and SEC in late 2022 after the collapse of the FTX crypto exchange. One of their most important principles is that one doesn’t have to decide whether each crypto is a commodity. If a platform trades bitcoin and Ether, then it’s a crypto platform and falls under the SRO with the rules applying to all of its tokens. “Legislation that writes detailed rules that create a binary classification scheme is bound to fail,” Massad said. The 236-page Clarity Act proposed by the House aims to do exactly this, with fears that it could undermine existing securities regulations, which are the foundation of far larger markets. “Many believe Congress needs to pass a law with extremely detailed provisions precisely because regulators failed to develop appropriate rules and guidance over the last four years,” Massad said in written testimony. “But that is like fighting the last war. We now have leadership at the SEC and CFTC who are committed to developing appropriate rules and guidance. While I may not agree with everything they do, I don’t think Congress can do their jobs better.” Massad would prefer to see Congress give regulators the authority to supervise the spot crypto markets for tokens that are not securities, which currently have no oversight. In addition it should provide the principles to enable the regulators to develop the rules together. The Senate has yet to release its planned financial market infrastructure legislation, but a series of principles were published by the Banking Committee last month. Meanwhile, the Clarity Act has progressed out of the Committee stage in the House. Image Copyright: Congress cryptocurrency digital assets legislation Massad regulation US Senate FacebookXRedditEmailLinkedInWhatsApp . ”
