U.S. Senate Majority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), speaking at a digital town hall on Wednesday, vowed to pass crypto legislation by the end of the year.
““I think Washington can’t just look away from crypto, bury its head in the sand and do nothing,” Schumer said during the Crypto4Harris livestream. “My goal is to get something passed in the Senate and made into law by the end of the year, and I believe we can do that.”
If we don’t act, he explained, “we risk seeing cryptocurrency exported to lower-common-denominator countries where there will be no regulation,” Sen. Schumer said. “I think we should strike a balance for cryptocurrency between promoting innovation and putting in place common-sense safeguards.”
The 90-minute livestream featured a mix of industry professionals, members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, as well as state governors and candidates for elected office. While several participants spoke live, many submitted pre-recorded remarks.
The main theme of the event was to achieve a “reset” with Vice President Kamala Harris and a future Harris administration, and to emphasize that the crypto space does not belong to one party.
“I know I speak for many of my friends and colleagues in this space, and in our industry, we want to make cryptocurrency regulation positive and bipartisan,” said investor Anthony Scaramucci, founder and managing partner of cryptocurrency-focused investment firm SkyBridge Capital.
“We’re keeping it less tribal; we’re focusing on the great things that can happen to the industry if we can get bipartisan commitment to cryptocurrency regulation,” he added.
Rep. Wiley Nickel (D-NC) agrees.
“Digital assets and blockchain technology are not a partisan issue,” Nickel said. “Turning this into a political issue will only set us back decades in Congress, which is why I have focused my efforts on this, ensuring that it remains a bipartisan issue.”
“There’s only one presidential candidate who has called cryptocurrencies a scam, and that’s Donald Trump,” Nickel noted. “Donald Trump is just an asshole.”
Many speakers couldn’t resist taking a dig at the Republican Party.
“Supporting cryptocurrencies is not about increasing the elite’s bitcoin,” billionaire and Shark Tank personality Mark Cuban said at the event. “Cryptocurrencies are not about the elite, they’re about egalitarianism, and that’s a huge opportunity for us because the rest of us need cryptocurrencies, and Republicans don’t care.”
Former President Donald Trump and his campaign made bold overtures to the digital asset industry, make a number of promisesranging from boosting domestic Bitcoin mining and creating a strategic Bitcoin reserve to ending what critics call the current administration’s “war on crypto,” targeting Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler.
Despite the apparent partisan divide, however, there are crypto allies on the Democratic side, representing a demographic that could still be “to win. » And there are signs that Vice President Kamala Harris’ team has made a “concerted effort“to reach out to the industry.
The organizers of the call said Decrypt last week“It’s about putting a new foot forward.”
Edited by Sebastian Sinclair
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