InfoBytes Blog
Senate Committees Begin Review Of Virtual Currency Regulation
This week, two Senate Committees—Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs—held hearings to hear from regulators and other stakeholders about how virtual currencies fit within the existing regulatory framework, and to assess whether there is a need to alter that framework in response to potential risks presented by emerging virtual currency technologies. The hearings followed an inquiry initiated by Senate Homeland Security leaders over the summer. Senators who participated in the hearings did not indicate any desire to move quickly to establish new federal regulations to address potential risks presented by innovation in virtual currencies. Rather, the lawmakers generally expressed a desire not to inhibit continued innovation, while supporting market participants who want to play by the rules and protecting the market from those who do not. In both hearings, FinCEN Director Jennifer Shasky Calvery described her agency’s ability to address the BSA/AML and terrorism financing risks presented by virtual currencies by employing FinCEN’s existing statutory authority and regulatory tools. Similarly, during the Senate Banking hearing, the Conference of State Bank Supervisors expressed confidence in the ability of state regulators to address consumer protection and other risks posed by virtual currencies through the existing state regulatory framework and processes. Still, committee members raised broader questions about the how to define or categorize virtual currencies (e.g. as a currency versus as a security) and the impact of such a classification on a range of other issues including monetary policy and tax administration. The breadth of the issues, which may need to be addressed by a range of government actors, formed the basis of Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Tom Carper’s (D-DE) call for a “whole government” approach to virtual currency.