Crypto Has a Seat at the Table in DC. Now What?

Cryptocurrencies were once an obscure topic in Washington, something a lawmaker could comfortably ignore without worrying about the impact on his political prospects. Not anymore.

This episode is sponsored by Quantstamp and Insider Protocol.

In this week’s episode of “Money Reimagined,” co-hosts Michael Casey and Sheila Warren examine the small but growing political clout that the crypto industry is acquiring. The wealth the industry generates buys influence and drives the creation of products and services that threaten the incumbent interests of the existing political-financial system.

They do so with the help of Jarrod Loadholt, a partner within law firm Ice Miller’s public affairs group, who, among other prior roles, has served as senior counsel to the U.S. House Financial Services Committee, and CoinDesk’s own Nikhilesh De, our managing editor for policy and regulation.

Loadholt and De walk us through the many regulatory issues coming down the pike for the crypto and digital assets industry. They discuss the fight over the infrastructure bill’s flawed crypto tax-reporting provision and what it means for crypto companies’ compliance obligations, the outlook for exchange-traded funds and the need for an international regulatory framework for the industry.

They also talk about the possibility of a turf war between the Commodities Futures Trading Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission, whose crypto-savvy chairman, Gary Gensler, is signaling an expanded role for the SEC in areas such as decentralized finance (DeFi).

The story that emerges is one of the legitimization of the industry as it starts to earn a seat at the table. But extreme tensions will surround around this highly disruptive technology as the pace of innovation accelerates and companies continue to develop products that either skirt the law or occupy an ambiguous space within it.