Bitcoiner Senator, Cynthia Lummis, Is Planning to Bring In A New Crypto Bill Next Year

Wyoming Republican Senator Cynthia Lummis plans to introduce a comprehensive bill next year covering tax taxation of digital assets and their categorization to consumer protections.

Lummis, who is also a Bitcoiner and one of the most vocal crypto advocates, will also be pitching Congress on creating a crypto regulatory body under the joint jurisdiction of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to oversee the digital asset market, as part of the digital asset policy bill.

If the bill is enacted, it would provide regulators with clear guidance on asset categorization, regulate stablecoins, and offer consumer protection.

As the crypto market goes mainstream, the regulatory scrutiny of the space has gone up as authorities around the world work on guidelines to regulate the sector.

FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, however, doesn’t expect legislative action to be the immediate answer for “regulatory clarity” as it’s “pretty hard right now to get things through Congress.”

“There will be substantial fleshing out of the crypto regulatory systems over the next few years,” he told CNBC.

Meanwhile, Jeremy Allaire, CEO of Circle, the issuer of USDC stablecoin, says the biggest threat to crypto will be “incoherent and inconsistent, hastily formed regulations and policy.”

But he believes there is a bipartisan recognition that this new technology presents a competitive advantage to the US as such “laws will come quicker than many people expect.”

According to Brian Brooks, the former Acting Comptroller of the Currency, the level of innovation and activity in the space is too big to ignore. In 2022, “the need for clear regulatory action that creates a sustainable framework to allow crypto and Web 3 to grow in the United States will reach its tipping point.”

Meanwhile, in the UK, the advertising watchdog warned Arsenal over ads for its “fan tokens.” The Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) said earlier in the week that two ads posted by Arsenal in August were “misleading” as the risk of trading crypto, that they aren't regulated in the region, and their potential tax implications were not made clear.

The agency has said that the ads must not appear in the same form again. “Cryptoassets are a red-alert priority issue for us,” a spokesperson said. “We won’t hesitate to take action against ads that break our rules.”

In other parts of the world, India, “The Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill, 2021? which was expected to be discussed in the winter session of Parliament, which ended Dec. 22, was dropped in the final days of the session and won’t be coming until at least after April, next year.

The government reportedly “wants to hold wider consultations on the matter.”