Seven Reports from Three Departments Chart the Course of Crypto Regulation

Seven reports from Treasury, Justice and Commerce were published last Friday, the result of the Biden administration’s executive order in March on developing strategies at the executive branch level.

While we already touched on some of the highlights earlier this week, Coindesk has an extensive breakdown of the seven reports out today. The reports dug into the questions ranging from criminal uses of crypto to the development of a central bank digital currency (CBDC), but didn’t offer much in terms of direct action. The reports are more a window into the mindset regulators are going to proceed from. And as we’ve written, the tone of that mindset can be summed up by the White House saying that in its estimation, crypto is a threat to the financial stability of “everyday Americans.”

Not directly related but surprising, Rohit Chopra, director of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau, said today at the annual Washington conference of the Electronic Transactions Association that he thinks regulators have become too obsessed with crypto.

“We’re in a moment right now where — I say this gently — Washington’s obsession with crypto has come at the expense of really thinking about the entire payments ecosystem,” the CFPB director said.