The US Treasury Secretary, Steve Mnuchin recently announced a new piece of legislation for the crypto space, one that has been in the works for the last few months. This new piece of legislation would be the final move that Mnuchin will make before he steps down from his position as the Treasury Secretary by the end of the year. The purpose of the ruling was to control and regulate the flow of cryptocurrencies through the numerous self-hosted digital wallets, which are used by most of the crypto industry. Even though it might be upsetting, but the rule of ‘Not your keys, not your crypto’ is quite true.
Even though it is not that big of a problem most of the time, when it does become one, it causes a lot of problems. One of the most pro-crypto Senator-elects that can be found today is Cynthia Lummis, who hails from Wyoming. This US state is already renowned for its pro-crypto stance. As expected, she wasn’t really keen about the new rule and had also begun protesting against it when only the rumors had started flying around, as she believed that it would be harmful for the crypto space.
Indeed, Lummis stated that just last week, she had had talks with Mnuchin and had urged him to look for a better solution for the issue, which apparently didn’t make a difference. She made a Twitter thread on Friday in which she explained that Congress had stood as the top avenue of reviewing and weighing in on these policy problems. She also said that any potential newly implemented rule could result in new transaction types to fall under the BSA, something that the Congress had no intention of doing. The fact is that Lummis is certainly not the first and neither the last lawmaker or government leader to show concern about this legal move.
As a matter of fact, this potential legislation had actually received a lot of resistance from some other members of Congress as well. The idea was predictably opposed by the chief executive of Coinbase, Brian Armstrong, and he also warned that the new proposed rule could result in unforeseen consequences if this regulatory change was to be implemented. In the beginning of the Twitter thread, Cynthia Lummis shared her deep concerns about the hasty rule that the Treasury had put forward. She stated that the Treasury should focus on initiating a transparent process that would engage with the Congress and the crypto industry, rather than implementing a hard-and-fast rule related to a very complex area.
However, it appears that Mnuchin didn’t have a problem with it at all, as the Treasury went ahead and introduced the legislation on Friday. The good news for the crypto space is that the rule is not as draconian as some of the people had feared, especially in light of the Travel Rule. Nonetheless, there are many pro-crypto individuals who are against the rule and don’t want it to be adopted.
