On NBC’s “Meet the Press” on December 18, US Senate Banking Committee Chairman Sherrod Brown said that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Commodities and Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) should consider banning cryptocurrencies.
Brown has requested a government-wide assessment of a cryptocurrency ban by all regulatory agencies. According to Brown, the US SEC has been “particularly aggressive,” and the US government should move forward with a crypto ban.
We want them to do what they need to do at the same time, maybe banning it, although banning it is very difficult because it would go offshore, and who knows how that would work, he added.
Brown cites the FTX exchange’s shocking collapse as one of the reasons why a ban on virtual assets is worth considering, but he believes it is “only one huge part of the problem.”
Brown describes digital assets as “dangerous” and a “threat to national security,” citing North Korean cybercriminal activity, drug and human trafficking, and terror financing as some of the issues that crypto has exacerbated.
Brown stated that he spent much of his eight years as Senate Banking Chair “educating” his colleagues as well as “trying to educate the public about crypto and the dangers that it presents to our security as a nation and the consumers that get hoodwinked by them.”
Sherrod Brown is the chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee. Brown, like Senator Elizabeth Warren, is a fierce critic of cryptocurrency. The duo has been actively working to demolish the entire cryptocurrency industry in the United States.
Brown has been sceptical of cryptocurrency for over a year and consistently expressed his concerns about stablecoin issuance, cryptocurrency advertising, and marketing campaigns. Brown also praised the US Department of Justice for charging former FTX exchange CEO Samuel Bankman-Fried with a crime on December 13.
Meanwhile, Senators Warren and Roger Marshall (R-KS) introduced new cryptocurrency legislation on Wednesday. Their bill, dubbed the “Digital Asset Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2022,” aims to combat money laundering in the cryptocurrency industry.
By closing some loopholes and applying some common-sense rules, we can crack down on the ways rogue nations, oligarchs, and drug lords use crypto to launder billions, evade sanctions, and finance terrorism. I’ve got a bipartisan bill for that.
Warren tweeted on Wednesday.
