Christian Catalini
@catalini
Crypto Policy Needs to Empower Builders, Not Speculators— Crypto Policy Needs to Empower Builders, Not Speculators — If the United States is to lead in crypto and AI, it needs clear rules that recognize the value these innovations can bring to the economy. Unfortunately, neither presidential candidate seems to understand this. The cryptocurrency industry is going all in on November’s US presidential election. But for all the investment it remains unclear how either candidate would approach the issue and prioritize builders over speculators. To establish the US as a leader in this strategic sector, the next administration must first replace the current lineup of hostile financial regulators, led by U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Gary Gensler, who has consistently rejected meaningful dialogue with the industry.
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Christian Catalini
@catalini
But installing regulators who are more sympathetic to the quick-profit mentality would hardly be an improvement. Crypto’s greatest strength – its ability to incentivize the construction of open networks – is also its biggest liability. As in the nineteenth-century railroad mania, cryptocurrencies have fueled the creation of valuable new infrastructure, but they have also been exploited by reckless actors to perpetrate scams and fraud. Sam Bankman-Fried being a prime example of someone who knew how to play the game within the existing, imperfect regulatory framework. Businesses engaging purely in speculation, or even outright scams, benefit the most from the current regulatory chaos. Worse, many who have proactively advocated regulation or tried to collaborate with regulators have faced enforcement actions, resulting in a loss of access to essential banking services.
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Christian Catalini
@catalini
Thoughtful crypto regulation will require more than Trump’s pandering. This is a complex undertaking. Success will require much more than courting Bitcoin maximalists and simply allowing stablecoins to exist. Achieving this vision demands a robust compliance framework. At the end of the day, policymakers in Washington must come together and draft new rules, rather than trying to squeeze crypto use cases into laws from nearly a century ago. And the industry, for its part, needs to tackle the many problems that traditional financial services and crypto leaders have long ignored. A thoughtful crypto policy would prioritize builders over speculators. The upside, much like in the early days of the internet, is a technology that can restore competition to sectors that haven’t seen it in decades.
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