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US Senators Propose Cryptocurrency Oversight Legislation Authorising CFTC as Default Regulator The latest attempt by Congress to come up with suggestions on how to manage a multibillion-dollar business that has been plagued by collapsing prices and lenders ceasing operations was made on Wednesday when a bipartisan group of US senators submitted a bill to regulate cryptocurrency.

The Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) would be authorized to be the default regulator for cryptocurrencies under the legislation proposed by John Boozman, the senior Republican senator, and Debbie Stabenow, the chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee. The proposed measure is in opposition to bills put out by other Congressmen and consumer advocates who advocated granting the US Securities and Exchange Commission the ability. Follow For More Updates at Worldrapiddnews.com

Investors in cryptocurrencies have seen prices collapse this year, businesses collapse, and fortunes and employment vanish overnight. Some organizations have even been charged by federal officials with operating an unauthorized securities exchange. The most valuable digital asset, bitcoin, is currently only worth a small portion of its record high price, which was more than $68,000 (approximately Rs. 5,381,900) in November 2021 and is currently around $23,000 (nearly Rs. 1,820,300) on Wednesday. This time period has been dubbed a “crypto winter” by industry leaders, and lawmakers have been frantically trying to enact strict regulations.

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All cryptocurrency platforms, including traders, dealers, brokers, and websites that handle customers’ cryptocurrency, would have to register with the CFTC under the legislation introduced by Democrats Stabenow and Boozman from Michigan and Arkansas, respectively.

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The SEC, which has hordes of investigators to look into any malfeasance, is historically a far larger and better-funded regulator than the CFTC. By placing user fees on the cryptocurrency sector, the measure seeks to address these problems by funding more thorough CFTC regulations of the sector.

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According to Boozman, “this bill will give the CFTC sole control over the spot market for digital commodities, resulting in enhanced consumer protections, market integrity, and innovation in the digital commodities field.”

• The bill’s co-sponsors include Senators John Thune of South Dakota and Cory Booker of New Jersey.
• The CFTC must have the right instruments to oversee this expanding industry, according to Thune.
• The proposal can be tacked to the list of legislation that Congress has released this year.

The Stablecoin TRUST Act, sponsored by Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., in April, would establish a framework for regulating stablecoins, which have suffered significant losses this year. A type of cryptocurrency known as a stablecoin is anchored to a certain value, typically the US dollar, another coin, or gold.

Additionally, in June, Senators Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York introduced the Responsible Financial Innovation Act, a comprehensive piece of legislation. In addition to requiring the IRS to adopt guidelines on merchant acceptance of digital assets and charitable contributions, this bill proposed legal definitions of digital assets and virtual currencies and made the distinction between digital assets that are commodities and those that are securities—something that has not yet been done.

The House Financial Services Committee is currently working on a proposal in addition to the Toomey legislation and the Lummis-Gillibrand legislation, but those discussions have stopped.

While she, top Republican member Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen had made significant progress toward an agreement on the legislation, Maxine Waters, chair of the committee, stated last month that “we are unfortunately not there yet, and will therefore continue our negotiations over the August recess.”

In a study published in November of last year, US President Joe Biden’s working group on financial markets urged Congress to enact legislation governing stablecoins. Earlier this year, Biden issued an executive order directing several agencies to consider measures to regulate digital assets.

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