BREAKING NEWS

After 1 month of extreme FUD from western media, the US government is going to finally admit that cryptocurrencies are not only useful but also an essential tool for the future of our economy. In order to ” bring transparency and integrity to these markets and, importantly, to deter and prosecute fraud and abuse”, the CFTC (Commodity Futures Trading Commission) and the SEC (Securities and Exchanges Commission) agree that they need to regulate AND embrace cryptocurrencies:

“I have spoken publicly about the potential benefits of the technology underlying Bitcoin, namely Blockchain or distributed ledger technology (DLT). Distributed ledgers – in various open system or private network applications – have the potential to enhance economic efficiency, mitigate centralized systemic risk, defend against fraudulent activity and improve data quality and governance.

DLT is likely to have a broad and lasting impact on global financial markets in payments, banking, securities settlement, title recording, cyber security and trade reporting and analysis. When tied to virtual currencies, this technology aims to serve as a new store of value, facilitate secure payments, enable asset transfers, and power new applications.

Additionally, DLT will likely develop hand-in-hand with new “smart” contracts that can value themselves in real-time, report themselves to data repositories, automatically calculate and perform margin payments and even terminate themselves in the event of counterparty default.

DLT may enable financial market participants to manage the significant operational, transactional and capital complexities brought about by the many mandates, regulations and capital requirements promulgated by regulators here and abroad in the wake of the financial crisis. In fact, one study estimates that DLT could eventually allow financial institutions to

save as much as $20 billion in infrastructure and operational costs each year. Another study reportedly estimates that blockchain could cut trading settlement costs by a third, or $16 billion a year, and cut capital requirements by $120 billion. Moving from systems-of-record at the level of a firm to an authoritative system-of-record at the level of a market is an enormous opportunity to improve existing market infrastructure.”

Blockchain [has] the potential to enhance economic efficiency, mitigate centralized systemic risk, defend against fraudulent activity and improve data quality and governance.

But not only the CFTC recognizes the intrinsic qualities of cryptocurrencies, they admit that they could have helped to avoid the 2008 financial crisis:

“Yet, while DLT promises enormous benefits to commercial firms and charities, it also promises assistance to financial market regulators in meeting their mission to oversee healthy markets and mitigate financial risk. What a difference it would have made on the eve of the financial crisis in 2008 if regulators had access to the real-time trading ledgers of large Wall Street banks, rather than trying to assemble piecemeal data to recreate complex, individual trading portfolios. I have previously speculated32 that, if regulators in 2008 could have viewed a real-time distributed ledger (or a series of aggregated ledgers across asset classes) and, perhaps, been able to utilize modern cognitive computing capabilities, they may have been able to recognize anomalies in market-wide trading activity and diverging counterparty exposures indicating heightened risk of bank failure. Such transparency may not, by itself, have saved Lehman Brothers from bankruptcy, but it certainly would have allowed for far prompter, better informed, and more calibrated regulatory intervention instead of the disorganized response that unfortunately ensued.”

In his conclusion, the SEC Chairman Jay Clayton says:

“Through the years, technological innovations have improved our markets, including through increased competition, lower barriers to entry and decreased costs for market participants. Distributed ledger and other emerging technologies have the potential to further influence and improve the capital markets and the financial services industry. Businesses, especially smaller businesses without efficient access to traditional capital markets, can be aided by financial technology in raising capital to establish and finance their operations, thereby allowing them to be more competitive both domestically and globally. And these technological innovations can provide investors with new opportunities to offer support and capital to novel concepts and ideas.”

The CFTC Chairman J. Christopher Giancarlo concludes like this:

“We are entering a new digital era in world financial markets. As we saw with the development of the Internet, we cannot put the technology genie back in the bottle. Virtual currencies mark a paradigm shift in how we think about payments, traditional financial processes, and engaging in economic activity. Ignoring these developments will not make them go away, nor is it a responsible regulatory response. The evolution of these assets, their volatility, and the interest they attract from a rising global millennial population demand serious examination.

With the proper balance of sound policy, regulatory oversight and private sector innovation, new technologies will allow American markets to evolve in responsible ways and continue to grow our economy and increase prosperity. This hearing is an important part of finding that balance.”