President Joe Biden signed an executive order calling on the government to examine the risks and benefits of cryptocurrencies and to create a strategy for digital assets.
It marks the first-ever plan for crypto regulation across multiple federal agencies in the United States, making it a whole-government approach to addressing the risks as well as harnessing the benefits of cryptocurrency.
The measures are to focus on six key areas: consumer and investor protection, financial stability, illicit activity, U.S. competitiveness in the world, financial inclusion, and responsible innovation.
The move has for a long time had the crypto industry on edge. There is also growing regulatory concern across the world around the nascent digital asset market.
Biden has asked the treasury to think about the future of money and payment systems. The guidelines are supposed to help American traders avoid financial risks.
Protecting consumers is a huge part of the White House directive. There have been mounting stories of investors falling for scams within cryptocurrency, where they lose enormous sums of money through cyberattacks on exchanges or users.
In the U.S., about 40 million people have invested in, traded, or used cryptocurrencies. Crypto has been around now for more than a decade, but it’s lately been coming more into the mainstream.
The recommendations could take at least three months to pull together.
There have allegedly been divides between the Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and White House officials about the arrival of a crypto strategy, which has led to delays in the policy being rolled out.
The White House has now called on the Treasury to assess and develop policy recommendations. The order will direct the Commerce Department to develop a comprehensive framework in order to drive up U.S. competitiveness and leadership in digital assets.
The White House is also encouraging Federal Research to continue researching a US-backed cryptocurrency, often referred to as a “digital dollar.”
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