US Rep. Brad Sherman on SEC “ending” crypto in the US: “Hope so”
2023-06-14 17:01:04 ET
US Rep. Brad Sherman has continued his anti-crypto stance, this time claiming in an
interview
with CNBC that crypto has “
attracted so many charlatans and certainly needs regulation.”
The US House Financial Services Committee member made the remarks during an appearance on the ‘The Exchange’ show ahead of the Fed rate announcement. His comments also came after the recent regulatory action against
Binance
and
Coinbase
by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
“Crypto will fade because of crypto”
Asked whether the
crypto regulation
and the SEC’s sudden wave of enforcement actions and lawsuits portended the end of crypto in America, the Congressman replied:
“Hope so, don’t think so,” before adding that crypto even as an investment network wasn’t good for America.
“If you listen to the promoters, they say they’re there trying to insulate a credit financial system that’s impervious to the federal government – so that it’s available for sanctions evaders. So that the US no longer has this major role in international affairs.”
He added the definition of cryptocurrency was “hidden money”, explaining that its tax and sanctions evaders that need this kind of money.
On the argument that crypto is there to reduce transaction costs for the average American, he exclaimed that the industry has been around for a while and that even when it hit the $3 trillion market cap, it “didn’t make it easier or cheaper to buy a sandwich.”
His argument:
“You go to the Subway, you can use a debit card, and you can use a credit card. If you’ve got crypto, what do you do? You have to change it into [fiat] money then you transfer it to your debit card and then buy a sandwich. It is not a payment system, it is not a currency. It is an attempt to make trillions of dollars by creating a currency.”
In November 2022, the crypto exchange FTX dramatically collapsed and the then CEO Sam Bankman-Fried was arrested and charged with fraud among other crimes. Millions of customers fell victim to FTX’s implosion, with this coming on the back of bankruptcies of multiple crypto companies, events captured in these
25 statistics of a “crazy 2022”
for crypto.
Although he doesn’t think crypto will be “regulated out of existence,” Sherman says the industry’s downfall is itself.
“It has attracted so many charlatans, and it certainly needs regulation. Sam Bankman-Fried isn’t the only one. Ultimately, I think crypto will fade because of crypto. There is no logical reason why Bitcoin is more valuable than hamster coin and if hamster coin is there, what about Cobra coin? A year ago I said, well, there’s no mongoose coin – maybe there should be a mongoose coin and they created one and for a while it was worth millions of dollars.”
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US Rep. Brad Sherman on SEC “ending” crypto in the US: “Hope so”
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