President Joe Biden’s administration has urged Congress to speed up its cryptocurrency regulation process as a US Treasury report said a Federal Reserve-induced global recession may be on the horizon.
The president wants the rollout of regulatory framework for crypto and digital assets to be accelerated, with officials worried that more delays will only further put investors at risk.
The Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) issued a report on Monday asking lawmakers to reach a decision on regulating crypto spot markets, the Financial Times reported.
Officials close to the congressional conversations, however, insisted they were still “months away” from passing any form of legislation, with nothing expected to happen in 2022.
Both the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) have been pushing for authority to regulate digital assets.
CFTC wants them to be classified as securities, which would be a giant setback for the digital asset industry.
The FSOC, which consists of the nation’s top financial regulators and also the Treasury, recommended that policies on cybersecurity and customer asset segregation are enacted.
The report also calls for the establishment of a legal framework for stablecoin issuers and the approval of legislation to provide regulators access to the subsidiaries of crypto platforms.
“Some crypto asset businesses may have affiliates or subsidiaries operating under different regulatory frameworks and no single regulator may have visibility into the risks across the entire business,” the FSOC report commented.