“It strikes me that we owe it to this new generation to respect their enthusiasm about virtual currencies with a thoughtful and balanced response, not a dismissive one…”
Cryptocurrencies surged this afternoon (after being dragged lower in the equity volatility chaos) as the much-fear regulatory-hearing today surprised many with a “thoughtful not dismissive” sentiment.
As Liberty Blitzkrieg’s Mike Krieger notes, it’s not often you’ll hear me say positive things about a U.S. government regulator, but I nearly fell out of my seat when I heard what the Chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), Christopher Giancarlo, said at today’s hearing with the Congressional Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.
In case you missed it, here’s his opening statement:
With your permission, I’d like to begin briefly with a slightly different perspective, and that is, as a dad. I’m the father of three college age children, a senior, a junior and a freshman. During their high school years, we tried to interest them in financial markets. My wife and I set up small brokerage accounts with a few hundred dollars that they could use to buy stocks, yet other than my youngest son who owned shares in a video game company, we haven’t been able to pique their interest in the stock market. I guess they’re not much different than most kids their age.
Well something changed in the last year. Suddenly they were all talking about Bitcoin. They were asking me what I thought, and should they buy it. One of their older cousins, who owns Bitcoin, was telling them about it, and they got all excited, and I imagine that maybe members of this committee may have had similar experiences in your own families of late.
It strikes me that we owe it to this new generation to respect their enthusiasm about virtual currencies with a thoughtful and balanced response, not a dismissive one, and yet we must crack down hard on those who try to abuse their enthusiasm with fraud and manipulation.
That’s just about as good as you’re gonna get from a government regulator. Beyond the fact that he’s advocating an entirely reasonable approach, I was shocked to see how well he had his finger on the pulse of one of the most significant and often overlooked aspects fueling Bitcoin and crypto assets overall, the generational factor.
Source/More: Crypto-Hearing Post-Mortem: Bitcoin Gains On Regulators’ “Balanced, Not Dismissive” Approach | Zero Hedge
