Home
News
- Hester Pierce said, banning crypto is more like shutting down the internet, a foolish thing to do and close to impossible to achieve.
- Crypto-ban will kill a potential digital asset-stimulated innovation in its nascent stage itself.
- In terms of innovation, the U.S. is undoubtedly lacking and needs to build a better and crypto-friendly regulatory framework.
Serving Commissioner at the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Hester M. Pierce is of the fierce belief that Bitcoin and crypto-industry have become as essential as the internet. Uprooting the whole crypto business would neither be a sensible solution nor a feasible option for anything.
Recently in an interview at Marketwatch’s ‘Investing in Crypto’ event, the renowned “crypto mom” was nudged to share her thoughts on the government banning bitcoin and cryptocurrency regulation, and will this year finally witness the SEC approving bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
Will the Government Ban Crypto? More like, Can It?
People are still wary of the government’s take on cryptocurrencies. Even some prominent personalities, including Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio, The Big Short’s Michael Burry, and Ron Paul, have this conception that governments can permanently ban bitcoin. But Pierce believes that crypto biz. Has already developed far and wide. So even though it’d be a foolish thing to do, the government “could certainly make an effort” and declare cryptocurrencies are banned, but that isn’t going to stop its trade. People can indeed find their ways.
Moreover, Pierce thinks crypto-ban will kill a potential digital asset-stimulated innovation in its nascent stage itself. “We would be missing out,” she added.
The SEC’s take on Approving Bitcoin EFTs
The Commissioner has always had a positive regulatory stance on digital assets, so it comes as close to no surprise that she had been pushing for SEC’s approval of a bitcoin ETF for several years. Many investors expect the support to happen this year, but when queried, Pierce said, “I don’t know.” However, the SEC will change seats, with Gary Gensler becoming the new chairman; it might change the SEC’s stance on the question at hand.
Pierce then added, with increasing “institutional interest in the market,” making people “comfortable in terms of how the underlying market works” and emerging “quasi exchange-traded products,” the market has “matured tremendously” in the past three years.
Yet, one of the emphasised reasons behind prior disapprovals, revealed by Pierce, was that “the bitcoin market is never gonna” resemble, say for example, “an equity market,” so “trying to impose that kind of a structure on the underlying market is inappropriate.”
The U.S. Certainly Needs to Up its Game
In terms of innovation, the American lawyer feels the U.S. is “certainly behind the curve.” Most other countries have adopted a “productive approach to regulating crypto,” where crypto-regulations aren’t non-existent, just more accepting. Canada has even approved some bitcoin ETFs. Meanwhile, the U.S. portrays “more of a ‘say no and tell people to wait’ approach.” Consequently, Pierce believes they should “build a good regulatory framework that works for crypto.”
With a background in journalism, Ritika Sharma has worked with many reputed media firms focusing on general news such as politics and crime. She joined The Coin Republic as a reporter for crypto, and found a great passion for cryptocurrency, Web3, NFTs and other digital assets. She spends a lot of time researching and delving deeper into these concepts around the clock, and is a strong advocate for women in STEM.
