Congress
US congressman and crypto skeptic explains why a crypto ban won’t work
In a recent interview, United States congressman and a known crypto skeptic Brad Sherman claimed that banning cryptocurrencies is not an option at this point. In a statement to LA Times, the Northridge-area Democrat said that the crypto industry has become quite powerful over the years. He added that the high capital donations to the politicians and strong crypto lobbying make it impossible for them to impose a blanket ban. He explained: “We didn’t ban it at the beginning because we didn’t realize it was important, and we didn’t ban it now because there’s too much money and power behind it.” The democratic representative is a well-known skeptic who has been demanding a crypto ban since 2019. Nearly three years later, Sherman has changed his tune about a ban and now advocates for regul...
GameFi developers could be facing big fines and hard time
Are cryptocurrency games innocent fun? Or are they Ponzi schemes facing an imminent crackdown by regulators in the United States? Tokens related to cryptocurrency games — known colloquially as “GameFi” — were worth a cumulative total of nearly $10 billion as of mid-August, give or take a few billion. (The number may vary depending on whether you want to include partially finished projects, how you count the number of tokens that projects technically have in circulation, and so on.) In that sense, whether the games are legal is a $10 billion question that few investors have considered. And that’s an oversight they may soon regret. That’s because a bipartisan consensus appears to be forming among legislators in the U.S. that the industry needs to be shut down. They haven’t addressed the issu...
House Representative Rashida Tlaib Takes Aim at Music Streaming Services In New Resolution
Rashida Tlaib, House Representative for Michigan’s 13th congressional district, has introduced a resolution that seeks to establish a new royalty program. The resolution effectively continues her fight for musicians to earn a “reasonable” living from their recorded music. “Expressing the sense of Congress that it is the duty of the Federal Government to establish a new royalty program to provide income to featured and non-featured performing artists whose music or audio content is listened to on streaming music services, like Spotify,” reads the bill. Tlaib’s resolution proposes the royalty rate be administered by SoundExchange and the Copyright Royalty Board, who would calculate, collect, retain and distribute payments to the appropriate copyright ...
Congress will likely decide the fate of crypto jurisdiction: Lummis staffer
A United States Senator Cynthia Lummis staffer believes that U.S. Congress will have to step in and resolve the dispute between the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) regarding who regulates cryptocurrencies if the matter cannot be resolved internally. The issue stems from 2014 when the CFTC first asserted jurisdiction over virtual currencies. This was later reaffirmed by a U.S. Federal Court ruling in 2018, which stated that CFTC had jurisdiction to prosecute criminals over fraud cases involving virtual currencies. However, it has been the SEC that has predominantly been investigating U.S.-based crypto exchanges and crypto assets to date. On Aug. 3, Senators Debbie Stabenow (Michigan) and John Boozman (Arkansas) introduced th...
Rap Snitches: Congress To Review RAP Act Barring Use of Lyrics In Court
HipHopWired Featured Video Source: Fulton County PD / Fulton County Sheriff’s Department The movement to prohibit the usage of rap lyrics in criminal cases by prosecutors has now reached the federal level, as a new bill with that aim has been introduced in the United States Congress. On Wednesday (July 27th), the RAP Act was introduced on the floor of the House of Representatives by Democratic Representatives Hank Johnson (GA-04) and Jamaal Bowman (NY-16). The Restoring Artistic Protection Act looks to protect artists from the wrongful usage of their lyrics against them in civil and criminal court cases. Representative Johnson shared the news through his Twitter account. “Freedom of speech is the constitutional foundation the framers thought necessary to enable a new and free soc...
Rap on Capitol Hill: Proposed Federal Law Would Ban Lyrics From Criminal Cases
A proposed law introduced in Congress on Tuesday (July 27) would heavily restrict when federal prosecutors can cite rap lyrics as evidence during a criminal case, mirroring recent efforts in California and New York to limit the increasingly controversial practice. Introduced by U.S. Reps. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) and Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), the Restoring Artistic Protection Act (RAP Act) would sharply limit when any form of creative or artistic expression could be used as evidence against the person who created it. “Our judicial system disparately criminalizes Black and brown lives, including Black and brown creativity,” Bowman said in a statement announcing the bill. “We cannot imprison our talented artists for expressing their experiences nor will we let their creativity be suppressed.” The bi...
Bill addressing stablecoins risks in US likely delayed until September: Report
Lawmakers in the United States House of Representatives have reportedly pushed back the timeline for considering a bill addressing the potential risks of stablecoins. According to a Monday report from the Wall Street Journal, people familiar with the matter said House members will likely delay voting on a stablecoin bill until September after being unable to complete a draft in time for a Wednesday committee meeting. The unresolved issues in the bill reportedly included provisions on custodial wallets from the Treasury Department and concerns from the Securities and Exchange Commission. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen reportedly wanted to coordinate with the Biden administration for her response to the bill. Neither has publicly weighed in on the proposed legislation, but Yellen previously...
US lawmakers say crypto industry has a ‘tech bro’ problem hurting innovation
According to some United States lawmakers in the House Financial Services Committee, the lack of diversity in the financial technology space could be hurting many companies’ bottom lines. In a Thursday virtual hearing on “Combatting Tech Bro Culture,” U.S. lawmakers and witnesses discussed how women and people of color were underrepresented in leadership positions in the financial technology industry, including crypto firms. Massachusetts Representative Stephen Lynch cited data that only 2% of venture capital funding went to firms in which the founders were women, while only 1% went to those with black founders, and 1.8% for Latinx. According to Lynch and some on the committee, this trend suggested an “old boys club” culture in companies including those involved with cryptocurrencies, in w...
Not the best week for crypto lending: Law Decoded, June 20-27
Due to Celsius Network’s withdrawal suspension in mid-June, the very topic of crypto lending made its entryway to the acute issues list for the regulators. Last week, lawmakers and officials continued to raise the question of necessary action, with significant utterance belonging to one of the key European crypto skeptics, Christine Lagard. European Central Bank president got so impressed with the Celsius crisis that she coined the term “MiCa II,” referring to the main regulatory package for crypto in the European Union. Lagarde believes the new MiCa should include separate crypto-asset staking and lending guidelines. It’s not necessary to be a civil servant to discern the flaws of the current lending model, though. A hardcore Bitcoin (BTC) maximalist and Swan Bitcoin CEO...
US lawmakers urge EPA to consider the potential benefits of crypto mining
A group of 14 United States senators and House representatives have signed a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency extolling what they believe are the benefits of crypto mining. In a Thursday letter, many U.S. lawmakers including pro-Bitcoin Senator Cynthia Lummis and Representative Tom Emmer addressed EPA administrator Michael Regan, requesting the government agency analyze the potential impact of crypto mining in an effort to balance innovation with environmental concerns. The group of 14 senators and representatives claimed mining could have a “substantial stabilizing effect on energy grids” and cited examples of mining operations using flared gas and renewable energy sources. “Digital assets, and their related mining activities, are essential to the economic future of the Unite...
Crypto advocate mounts challenge to longtime Silicon Valley Congresswoman
In terms of policy, Greg Tanaka calls himself a legislator for the digital age and possibly the most pro-crypto person running in this election cycle. Now a Palo Alto City Council member, he has set his sights on the United States House of Representatives seat for California’s 16th: the Silicon Valley district. In an interview with Cointelegraph, the self-described nerd exuded enthusiasm and spoke with an unwavering smile about crypto and the financial system. Legal DAOs and crypto tax holidays “It’s the first form of truly better money,” Tanaka said of crypto. “More benefit goes to the people creating the value versus with traditional finance.” He envisioned a future where everyone would have their own token. That “will create a lot more economic equity,” he said. In addition to his polit...
Open Letter From Congress Rips Spotify’s Controversial Discovery Mode, Seeks Financial Transparency
Congressional leaders representing the Caucus on Multicultural Media are taking issue with a perceived lack of financial transparency on the part of Spotify. In a recent letter dated March 26th and signed by Democrat Representatives Tony Cardenas, Yvette D. Clarke, and Judy Chu, the caucus raised concerns that the streaming giant’s controversial Discovery Mode presents artists with a “prisoner’s dilemma,” when it comes to their ability to monetize on the platform. Discovery Mode, unveiled in November of 2020, is a relatively new feature on the Spotify platform which allows artists the option to boost the visibility of their songs on the platform in exchange for a lower promotional royalty rate. As the letter identifies, however, there is the cha...
