According to US Congressman Brad Sherman, cryptocurrencies have not been banned because there is too much money and power behind them now.
He revealed this yesterday during an interview with the Los Angeles Times.
According to the US, cryptocurrencies are now too powerful to ban them
Sherman has always been opposed to cryptocurrencies, and extremely skeptical about them, so much so that the Los Angeles Times calls him “the leading crypto skeptic on Capitol Hill.”
The lengthy interview was specifically about cryptocurrencies and the fact that Sherman even considers them a threat to US national security.
The Democratic congressman by the way envisions precisely a House subcommittee dedicated to investor protection.
His words therefore sound like a kind of defeat, i.e., the final surrender by US policy to ban these new digital assets.
Sherman explicitly stated that even he does not believe that a ban on cryptocurrencies is likely in the US any time soon.
The problem would be that the crypto industry is now a powerful lobby at the political level, thanks to substantial campaign donations from politicians.
According to the Democratic congressman, this would be the real reason why politicians in the US have not decided to ban cryptocurrencies.
Moreover, he added that when they could have been banned, it was not done because the problem was underestimated, while now it would be too late because “there’s too much money and power behind it.”
However, it is worth mentioning that there does not seem to be a majority in the US Parliament in favor of this view, namely that cryptocurrencies should be banned, but that it is simply too late now to do so. Indeed, the bipartisan proposal by Democrat Gillibrand along with Republican Lummis garnered a majority support, which somewhat undermines Sherman’s assumption that the House should ban cryptocurrencies.
The Responsible Financial Innovation Act not only does not ban cryptocurrencies, but rather aims to provide the US with a regulatory framework that allows their use for all purposes. Therefore, Sherman’s positions at this time seem to be in the minority within the US political landscape.
Sherman‘s main fear is that individual investors will be defrauded, but he also believes that cryptocurrencies pose a systemic threat to the current financial system, aiding criminals and undermining the dominance of the dollar.
The Democratic congressman is very confusing though, because he conflates Bitcoin with other cryptocurrencies, and puts all altcoins on the same footing, including Ethereum.
Minor cryptocurrencies cannot threaten the dollar in any way, and even Bitcoin itself does not seem to be able to do so, at least in the short or medium term.
The curious thing is that the Los Angeles Times article at one point begins to question Sherman‘s assumptions regarding specifically the use of Bitcoin by criminals, almost as if he somehow wants to defend him against unfounded accusations by a politician who does not yet seem to have figured it out very well.
The congressman then focuses on what should be his specific political role, which is to defend investors. In this regard, he states that there is little that can be done to prevent people from spending their money recklessly.
He admits that many Americans for example want to bet on meme coins, and in this regard, he calls cryptocurrencies a Ponzi scheme.
Again he does not distinguish between Bitcoin, Ethereum and the smaller altcoins, denoting a shallowness that only fortifies the hypothesis that he did not really know what he was talking about.
Another clue along these lines is that he argues that cryptocurrencies should be regulated by the SEC, as is done for securities, when in fact Lummis and Gillibrand’s Responsible Financial Innovation Act itself admits that true cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are not securities, so much so that it assigns the CFTC to oversee crypto markets.
Even the Los Angeles Times highlights how Sherman’s ideas now seem decidedly outdated by the developments made in this regard by US policy during 2022.
In fact, the newspaper comments:
“Sherman may dream of banning crypto, but for now, it’s far from clear he’ll even win the battle over how to regulate it.”
In other words, his position is not only anachronistic, but it already appears completely outdated, as if Sherman has not even realized what has happened in recent months within the very Parliament of which he is a member.
This, however, obviously does not prohibit him from disagreeing with how the US regulator is trying to intervene in the crypto markets, but it does make it clear that he is now in a minority position that will easily lead nowhere.
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