Sources Contact Advanced Search Tutorials

An Interest In:

Web News this Week

Search Archive

Some of Our Sources

View All Sources

Help Webnuz

Referal links:

February 7, 2018 02:00 pm

Senate Cryptocurrency Hearing Strikes a Cautiously Optimistic Tone

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: In a hearing today before the Senate Banking Committee, Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Jay Clayton and Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Christopher Giancarlo opened up about what the near-term U.S. regulatory fate of cryptocurrency might look like. In a week of plunging prices and bad news, the hearing struck a tone that coin watchers could reasonably interpret as surprisingly optimistic. Over the course of the open hearing, Clayton and Giancarlo traded testimony over what can be regulated, what should be regulated and how, while offering a broader outlook on the long-term future of virtual currency markets and blockchain tech. The testimony drew a useful distinction among three pillars of the virtual currency ecosystem (for lack of a better unifying term): cryptocurrencies, "a replacement for dollars;" ICOs, "like a stock offering;" and distributed ledger technologies, or the technical framework generally known as blockchain. Throughout the hearing, on the SEC side, Clayton struck a relatively solemn tone focused on ICO fraud concerns, while the CFTC's Giancarlo came across as genuinely enthusiastic and curious about the emerging market. When asked about the intrinsic value of cryptocurrency, Clayton said: "There are a lot of smart people who think there's something to the value of cryptocurrency and the international exchange and I'm not seeing those benefits manifesting themselves in the market yet. I look at this from the perspective of Main Street investors and they should understand that." On ICOs as a security: "I believe every ICO I've seen is a security... You can call it a coin but if it functions as a security, it is a security... Those who engage in semantic gymnastics or elaborate re-structuring exercises in an effort to avoid having a coin be a security are squarely in the crosshairs of our enforcement provision."

Slashdot

Slashdot was originally created in September of 1997 by Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda. Today it is owned by Geeknet, Inc..

More About this Source Visit Slashdot