U.S. lawmaker says there’s “too much money and power” behind crypto-currencies to ban them

U.S. Representative Brad Sherman says Congress has not banned crypto-currencies because “there’s too much money and power behind them“. He elaborates, “Money for lobbying and money for campaign contributions works, otherwise people wouldn’t do it, and that’s why we haven’t banned crypto.“

A U.S. lawmaker talks about regulation and explains why Congress won’t ban crypto-currencies.

Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) shared his views on crypto-currencies and their regulation in an interview with the Los Angeles Times, published Sunday.

The U.S. lawmaker from California, who chairs a House subcommittee on investor protection, wants to make crypto-currencies illegal but does not believe Congress will take such a step. ” I don’t think we’re going to…”. [interdire les cryptos] any time soon“, he told the media.

“Money for lobbying and money for campaign contributions works, otherwise people wouldn’t do it, and that’s why we haven’t banned crypto“, explained Brad Sherman, elaborating:

We didn’t ban it at first because we didn’t realize it was important, and we haven’t banned it now because there’s too much money and power behind it.

Not only is the congressman concerned about individual investors being scammed, but he also sees crypto-currencies as a threat to U.S. national security. He believes that crypto-currencies pose a systemic threat, enable criminals, and undermine the dominance of the U.S. dollar.

Lawmakers are particularly concerned about crypto-currency blending services like Tornado Cash. In August, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) banned the Ethereum blending app, saying the blender has aided North Korean hackers such as the hacker syndicate known as the Lazarus Group.

Brad Sherman admitted that there is little he can do to prevent investors from spending their money recklessly. “It’s hard to run the subcommittee dedicated to investor protection in a country where people want to bet on…” [meme coins]“, opined the U.S. legislator, stating:

Crypto-currencies are memes that you invest in, in the hope that you can sell them to someone else before they collapse. That’s what’s great about a Ponzi scheme.

Sherman went on to discuss the regulation of crypto-currencies in the absence of a ban. Comparing crypto to a stock or stock, he believes that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) should oversee the crypto industry, citing the regulator’s size, expertise, and aggressive enforcement.

However, three bills have been introduced in Congress this year to make the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) the primary regulator of the crypto industry.

In July, Brad Sherman urged the SEC to go after the major crypto-currency exchanges that listed XRP. The securities watchdog said in January that it had taken 97 enforcement actions related to crypto-currencies. In May, the regulator said it had nearly doubled the size of its crypto-currency enforcement unit.