纽约——加密货币高管周三前往国会山表示，他们快速增长的行业明白，更多的监管可能即将到来，但他们不希望这抑制互联网的下一波浪潮，也不希望它将互联网离岸转移到其他国家。
来自主要密码交易所、矿业和其他相关业务的领导人在众议院金融服务委员会作证了四个半小时，该委员会希望了解更多关于该行业如何运作的信息，因为该行业正在就如何监管该行业进行争论。大部分讨论集中在保护一个新兴生态系统中的投资者，批评者称之为“狂野西部”
来自国会议员的问题从关于什么是“稳定币”的101级讨论——它们是与美元挂钩的数字硬币或类似的持有稳定价值的东西——到技术和神秘的问题。许多问题集中在稳定的货币如何帮助美元保持其世界最重要货币的地位，以及数字资产如何帮助数百万没有银行账户或处于金融体系边缘的美国人。
如何监管数字资产一直是一个棘手的问题，公司在州和联邦监管的拼凑下运营。对于证券交易委员会或其他监管机构是否应该监管市场的某些领域，或者是否需要一个全新的监管机构，仍存在分歧。
众议院金融服务委员会(House financial services Committee)主席、加州民主党众议员玛克辛·沃特斯(Maxine Waters)表示:“目前，加密货币市场没有总体或集中的监管框架，这使得数字资产领域的投资容易受到欺诈、操纵和滥用。
与此同时，委员会中的许多共和党人主张在监管问题上保持低调。例如，田纳西州众议员约翰·罗斯(John Rose)询问行业高管，国会如何阻止创新离开美国并在海外进行。
FTX交易交易所首席执行官萨姆·班克曼-弗里德说:“我乐观地认为，在监管方面，我们离那一点不远了。”。“我认为这里有一些澄清可能会有很大帮助。”
他列举了对实际加密货币及其相关期货合约的交易实行单一、统一的监管框架，以及对稳定货币储备的审计要求等。
比特币基地全球首席财务官阿莱西娅·哈斯(Alesia Haas)表示，美国政府应该为数字资产建立一个新的监管框架。她在书面证词中表示:“我们现有的监管体系对于crypto创建的开放、分散的网络并不有效。
随着行业规模的膨胀和更多投资者涌入市场，紧张局势只会越来越大，要么是因为他们相信加密技术的未来，要么是因为他们希望快速赚钱。加密货币的总价值接近2.4万亿美元，与苹果、微软或另一家全球最大的股票大致相当。
最早的比特币矿商之一比特富瑞集团(Bitfury Group)首席执行官布莱恩布鲁克斯(Brian Brooks)表示:“加密有一点让人们感到害怕。”他同时表示，该国不需要再增加一个监管机构来监管加密。“我不知道是什么，可能只是因为是新的。”
唐纳德·特朗普(Donald Trump)担任总统时，布鲁克斯曾是监管银行业的货币审计长办公室的代理负责人。
对加密货币的一个重大批评是它们吞噬了多少电力。根据剑桥比特币电力消费指数，仅比特币的开采一年消耗的能源就与全球所有的黄金开采差不多，或与挪威或乌克兰差不多。不过，周三的讨论只有一小部分是围绕这一点展开的。
在听证会上作证的高管是稳定发行人圈的首席执行官杰里米·阿拉尔；FTX的班克曼-弗里德；比特富里集团的布鲁克斯；查尔斯·卡斯卡瑞拉，区块链基础设施公司帕克斯信托公司的首席执行官；德纳里·迪克森，恒星发展基金会的首席执行官，在比特币基地的支付和哈斯公司工作。
Crypto execs head to Capitol as Congress mulls regulations
NEW YORK -- Cryptocurrency executives went to Capitol Hill Wednesday to say their fast-growing industry understands more regulation is likely coming, but they don't want it to squelch the next wave of the internet or send it offshore to other countries.
Leaders from major crypto exchanges, mining and other related businesses testified for four-and-a-half hours before the financial services committee of the House of Representatives, which wanted to learn more about how the industry works as it wrangles with how to regulate it. Much of the discussion centered on protections for investors in a burgeoning ecosystem that critics have called the “Wild West.”
Questions from Congressional members ranged from 101-level discourses about what “stablecoins” are — they're digital coins pegged to the U.S. dollar or something similar to hold a stable value — to the technical and arcane. Many questions focused on how stablecoins could help the U.S. dollar hold onto its status as the world's most important currency, as well as on how digital assets could help the millions of Americans without bank accounts or at the fringes of the financial system.
How to regulate digital assets has been a thorny issue, with companies operating under a patchwork of state and federal oversight. There's still disagreement about whether the Securities and Exchange Commission or other regulatory agencies should monitor certain areas of the market, or whether an entirely new regulatory body is needed.
“Currently cryptocurrency markets have no overarching or centralized regulatory framework, leaving investments in the digital asset space vulnerable to fraud, manipulation and abuse,” said California Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters, chairwoman of the House financial services committee.
Many Republicans on the committee, meanwhile, pushed for a light touch on regulation. Tennessee Rep. John Rose, for example, asked industry executives how Congress could prevent innovation from leaving the United States and happening offshore.
“I’m optimistic that on the regulatory side, we’re not that far from that point,” said Sam Bankman-Fried, CEO of trading exchange FTX. “I think there are a few clarifications that could go a very long way here.”
He cited having a single, unified regulatory framework for the trading of actual cryptocurrencies and the futures contracts related to them, as well as having audit requirements for the reserves of stablecoins, among other things.
Alesia Haas, chief financial officer of Coinbase Global, said the U.S. government should create a new regulatory framework for digital assets. “Our existing regulatory system does not work effectively for the open, decentralized networks that crypto has created,” she said in written testimony.
The tensions are growing only bigger as the industry balloons in size and as more investors pour into the market, either because they believe in the future of crypto or because they're looking to make a quick buck. Cryptocurrencies are collectively valued at nearly $2.4 trillion, roughly the same size as Apple, Microsoft or another one of the world's biggest stocks.
“There’s something about crypto that scares people,” said Brian Brooks, CEO of Bitfury Group, one of the earliest Bitcoin miners, while saying the country doesn't need to add another regulator to watch over crypto. “I don’t know what it is, maybe it’s just because it’s new.”
Brooks was formerly the acting head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which regulates the banking industry, when Donald Trump was president.
One big criticsm lobbed at cryptocurrencies is how much electricity they devour. The mining of Bitcoin alone uses roughly as much energy in a year as all the gold mining around the world, or roughly as much as Norway or Ukraine, according to the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricty Consumption index. Only a small slice of Wednesday's discussion centered on that, though.
The executives testifying at the hearing were Jeremy Allaire, CEO of stablecoin-issuer Circle; Bankman-Fried of FTX; Brooks of Bitfury Group; Charles Cascarilla, CEO of blockchain-infrastructure firm Paxos Trust Company; Denelle Dixon, CEO of Stellar Development Foundation, which works in payments and Haas of Coinbase.
