Regs Are Advanced for Cryptocurrencies But Not Yet Finalized

A Republican Congressman wants more anti-money laundering direction for digital currencies. Congressman Dana Rohrabacher began a recent speech to Congress with Russian involvement in the presidential election, and then made the transition to cryptocurrencies.

He said “people with bitcoins living in despotic regimes throughout the world have the opportunity to protect their assets from abusive and corrupt governments” but that they would need regulatory help do so.

He wanted additional info into the identities of users of digital currencies. He reportedly said, “I believe we should encourage digital currencies to implement full anti-money laundry and know-your-customer standards. These protection should empower both our law enforcement and national security professionals to keep terrorists’ financing under control, to protect our freedom of using digital currencies…and keep America in the lead of this technological advance.”

The Combating Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Counterfeiting Act of 2017, wants to Federalize parts of digital currency exchanges and other dealings under federal statutes.

The trouble with cryptocurrencies from a government point of view is that they don’t yield easily to regulation. You don’t have to use an exchange for instance to buy or sell currencies. And if you don’t use an exchange then your regulatory participation is severely limited.

This is the larger problem faced by those who would regulate cryptocurrencies or blockchain. The more regulations they have, the less well the technology functions.

And in the case of cryptocurrencies, regulations actually drive people away from government dealings. Many times they may conduct peer to peer transactions without any supervision at all.

For these reasons, considerable regulation is probably going to be debatable. Some regulation may work, but not a lot. Nobody knows how it will turn out, but over-regulation will either kill the market or, more likely, make it more invisible to the Feds.

It is sure to result in a long-term and ongoing debate. And it won’t be easily resolved.

blockcitynews.com