Paul Grewal, Coinbase’s General Counsel, is due to speak today about a cryptocurrency bill in the United States. While he welcomes the initiative, he maintains that the country is “lagging behind” other parts of the world.
Coinbase’s legal director calls for greater regulatory clarity in the US
With the US position on cryptocurrencies in the news since the beginning of the year, Paul Grewal, Coinbase’s General Counsel, will testify today on Capitol Hill before the House Agriculture Committee.
Tomorrow I will be testifying on Capitol Hill before the House Committee on Agriculture on the need for clear crypto rules and the Digital Asset Market Structure Discussion Draft. Read a summary of my testimony here/below:https://t.co/V4vTo0OT6L
– paulgrewal.eth (@iampaulgrewal) June 5, 2023
This follows an announcement last week which saw G. T. Thompson, the chairman of that committee, along with Patrick McHenry, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, release a joint bill on digital assets.
One of the sentences uttered on this occasion by Dusty Johnson, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Commodity Markets, Digital Assets and Rural Development, particularly echoes this legal vagueness in the United States:
“There’s no such thing as a digital asset.
There’s a lot of confusion around digital assets. Our bill establishes a functional framework to fill the gaps in the regulatory process between the CFTC and the SEC. “
It is therefore in this continuity that Paul Grewal will call on Congress to continue its efforts to provide a regulatory framework:
“Congress needs to draw lines between when digital assets and the technology behind them should be regulated as commodities, when they should be regulated as securities, and when financial regulations should not apply or simply don’t make sense. “
“The US is lagging behind “
In the speech he plans to give, Paul Grewal considers that the bill “represents a major step forward”, but he also deplores the fact that the United States is “lagging behind”.
To back up his comments, he cites regulation in the European Union, Hong Kong, and countries such as the United Kingdom and Australia as examples.
In addition, Coinbase’s General Counsel points out that while some crypto-currencies are indeed securities or commodities, others do not fall into either category, which justifies the need for a clear framework.
As a result, while 20% of Americans hold and/or use cryptocurrencies, Paul Grewal believes that this project is just a first step, while the industry is set to grow:
“Crypto is here to stay, and it is in America’s interest for Congress to ensure that digital assets are appropriately defined and regulated using a risk-based approach. “
While Patrick McHenry had already called Gary Gensler to account for his actions against cryptocurrencies, that hasn’t stopped the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) from continuing his regulatory crusade. In fact, this crusade reached a new milestone yesterday, with the attack on Binance.
