White House Says Congress Needs To Step Up Crypto Efforts

The Biden administration published a roadmap urging Congress to accelerate its crypto enforcement efforts.

“At President Biden’s direction, we have spent the past year identifying the risks of cryptocurrencies and acting to mitigate them using the authorities that the Executive Branch has,” begins the public statement, titled, “The Administration’s Roadmap to Mitigate Cryptocurrencies’ Risks,” which noted that 2022 was, “a tough year for cryptocurrencies.”

Events of the past year loomed large over the officials’ guidance, which focused on “continuing to ensure that cryptocurrencies cannot undermine financial stability, protecting investors, and holding bad actors accountable.”

The cross-departmental roadmap was drafted by four senior federal officials in the Biden administration and released Friday (Jan. 27) by the National Economic Council (NEC), an Executive Office of the President (EOP) established to advise the president on U.S. and global economic policy.

Related: US White House Calls For Tighter Crypto Controls

This, as the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) is separately asking for the public’s help in identifying key areas to prioritize within the crypto industry for further research and development, per a request last week (Jan. 26).

Brian Deese, director of the NEC; Arati Prabhakar, director of the White House OSTP; Cecilia Rouse, chair of the Council of Economic Advisors (CEA); and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan all contributed to the document, which addressed much of its proposed guidance to the U.S. Congress.

Lawmakers Urged to Make Laws

In a speech last Wednesday (Jan. 25), Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Commissioner Kristin Johnson formally called on Congress to modify several pieces of proposed digital asset legislation to expand the agency’s authority over the crypto marketplace.

“We must never allow a good crisis to go to waste,” Johnson said, before going on to push for greater CFTC authority to conduct due diligence on any firm seeking to purchase a 10% or greater equity interest in market participants registered with the CFTC.