What is the proper role for a policymaker in setting rules for a rapidly developing technology? Too often, policymakers move slowly and the technology develops before proper rules can be put in place. And to be fair, legislation that puts guardrails around new technology without stunting its growth, while also protecting consumers, is not easy. But when a good-but-not-perfect bill is on the table to do just that, Congress should seize the opportunity and vote yes. That is exactly where we are on the eve of the Senate vote on Clarity.
When FTX collapsed in November 2022, I was a sitting commissioner at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. I watched as the government discovered billions of dollars of misappropriated customer funds. Reporters asked, again and again, what the CFTC could have done. The honest answer was: not enough. The Commission had anti-fraud and anti-manipulation authority, but Congress had never given it explicit jurisdiction over digital asset spot markets. This gap is still open today, which means the protections Congress extends to existing securities and commodities still don’t cover the majority of the types of digital assets.
Nearly four years later, we still haven’t solved this problem.
