Sam Bankman-Fried, the CEO of FTX, has called for more regulatory clarity as it is the only factor that will attract crypto innovators to the US. However, Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow, the chairwoman of the Senate’s agricultural committee, feels otherwise. She believes the presence of unregulated offshore marketplaces for digital assets poses unacceptable risks to consumers in the United States.
Bankman-Fried at the hearing, Examining Digital Assets: Risks, Regulation and Innovation, on digital assets said clarity on the cash cryptocurrency market would be great for the industry. He highlighted that a lot of institutional capital is waiting for just that to happen before moving into digital assets directly.
The FTX CEO suggested for a registration process for digital tokens as it would helpful for bringing activity back to the US. Bankman-Fried believes a lot of activity is taking place on foreign shores as there is no clear registration process for tokens. 95% of the volume is offshore and it is about time the United States takes it back. The executive added that crypto markets offer equitable access to all.
Bankman-Fried explained that market data in the digital asset space is free and transparent for everyone. All users can send orders directly to an exchange. In comparison, most consumers in the traditional financial markets can’t send their orders directly to the exchange’s matching engine. Customers have to depend on intermediaries which mean higher fees and lack of transparency and this results in a less favorable market structure.
