President Biden nominates Crypto Critic to regulate Wall Street

According to Bloomberg, President Biden will reportedly nominate the anti-crypto critic, Saule Omarova as the director of the U.S. Monetary Supervision Agency, i.e., the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). Omarova in the past has argued that digital currencies pose a threat of destabilizing the economy and can be easily abused by private enterprises at the cost of public security.

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The OCC looks over the country’s biggest lenders including JP Morgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp., and Citigroup Inc. With Omarova’s entry into Wall Street’s regulatory sphere, above mentioned big names could be facing a multitude of tougher oversight and stricter rules.

Omarova pitched against the fast growth cryptocurrencies and argued that the decentralized sphere is “benefiting mainly the dysfunctional financial system we already have.” Omarova asserted that virtual currencies may potentially destabilize the economy. Furthermore, she stated that crypto is also exposed to easy exploitation by private firms at the expense of public safeguards.

US Semi Crypto Crackdown

The US government is rapidly heading towards an anti-crypto path regardless of the massive crypto community within the government itself. Gary Gensler, the Chairman of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently in an interview with the Washington Post, compared stablecoins to the Wild West, arguing that digital currencies are acting like Poker Chips at the Casino.

“History tells us private forms of money don’t last long… These stablecoins are acting almost like poker chips at the casino right now. So, add to the Wild West analogy, I mean we have a lot of casinos here in the Wild West, and poker chips are these stablecoins at the casino gaming tables. And so I think there’s just a lot of warning signs and flashing lights that might have a spill on aisle three and I’d rather get ahead of it.”

Furthermore, the US authorities are aggravated with frequent ransomware attacks, where hackers demand multi-million dollars in return. To tackle the problem of hacks, the U.S. Treasury Department has also announced sanctions against crypto-ransomware attacks. While the US crypto community holds ground, the government is leaving no rock unturned in initiating a crackdown.

About Author

Palak Malhotra

Journalism & Mass Comm. ‘21 graduate, Palak is a GenZ journalist with background in Lifestyle journalism & PR. At CoinGape, Palak is a junior crypto journalist preparing for Web 3.0