U.S. Congressman Presents the Cryptocurrency Act of 2020 To Bring Regulatory Clarity

The regulatory uncertainty with respect to handling digital assets continues to persist in the United States. While different regulators have been working on different tasks, there’s no clear path as of now as to which regulator handles what.

A U.S. Congressman is now working on clarifying which regulator shall be responsible for different tasks related to digital assets. On Monday, March 9, Representative Paul Gosar (R-AZ) presented a bill dubbed as the the “Crypto-Currency Act of 2020”.

In his bill, Gosar has categorized cryptocurrencies in three different categories: crypto-commodity, crypto-currency and crypto-security. The bill states that the commodity category shall be regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the ‘security’ category by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and the ‘currency’ category by the Treasury via the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN).

Besides, the bill also asks for recognising public cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin as crypto-commodities instead of crypto-currencies. While explaining the crypto-securities categorization, the bill states: “all debt, equity, and derivative instruments that rest on a blockchain or decentralized cryptographic ledger.”

Communications Director for Gosar Ben Goldey said that the emphasis is on the industry engagement before any sort of regulatory approval. “Since this is such a niche issue, we worked with stakeholders and outside groups/experts to get a good sense of the kind of clarity that the industry needed. We chose to gather stakeholder support before working toward cosponsors,” said the Director.

Popular Bitcoin investor Erik Finman has also been involved in drafting this bill. Finman said that he had earlier approached Goser’s team for this bill because: “I like that they’re brave and will stand strong for anything.”

Earlier, another version of the bill was leaked out in December 2019. Speaking on it, Finaman said: “That bill that leaked, we were experimenting with a couple of things, that was our second draft. We’re thirty-two versions away from that.” 

It remains to be seen as to how things move ahead with the bill approvals. Investors in the U.S. have been waiting for long for any regulatory clarity on the part of the government with respect to the status of digital currencies.