U.S. GOVERNMENT GUIDING RULES TO REGULATE DIGITAL SECTOR

The Biden administration has just released a framework for the development of digital assets, after receiving the recommendations requested in the March 9 executive order.

As with all other nations seeking to regulate digital assets, the framework in the U.S. will focus its efforts primarily on consumer protection, which then becomes primary.

The document recommends that federal regulators work together and issue guidelines, one of which, issued earlier by the SEC, is proving detrimental to banks and especially those that have allowed their customers to invest in cryptocurrencies in recent times.

In the Biden administration’s idea about this project, the protection of consumers, investors and businesses turns out to be neuralgic, so much so that market regulators, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), have been told to pursue investigations pervasively. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) were urged to “redouble efforts to monitor consumer complaints.”

To help consumers understand the risks associated with digital assets, the framework tasked the Financial Literacy Education Commission (FLEC) with leading public awareness initiatives.

Collaboration between these federal authorities is called for, and they have been asked to work together to address potential risks to consumers, much of which can be inferred from their complaints about digital assets.

According to guidelines issued by the SEC in March, public companies that hold cryptocurrency assets on behalf of customers or others must account for them as liabilities on their balance sheets.

This newly introduced change may cause major damage for all the U.S. Banks that have recently opened to the crypto sector that see their projects in jeopardy, including Goldman Sachs Group Inc, JPMorgan Chase & Co, BNY Mellon and Wells Fargo & Co.

This point is an important development because banks have strict capital rules that require them to hold cash against balance sheet liabilities, while they are not required to disclose custody of client assets on their balance sheets.

The rationale for this is that custodial cryptocurrency assets present “unique” risks that meet the definition of a liability under U.S. accounting standards, according to the SEC’s acting chief accountant.

To close does not sunset in this context the CBDC project whose research, testing and evaluation has been entrusted to the Federal Reserve.