In a recent analysis, Crypto News Flash’s Jake Simmons went over some of the possible ramifications that a Biden victory could have on the crypto sector. As Coindesk noted in a report confirmed by the Federal Reserve, Biden selected former Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) chair, Gary Gensler, to helm the new financial policy transition team. Given Gensler’s experience in the crypto sector, Simmons believes that the newest appointee’s resume may suggest that Biden’s cabinet has taken greater notice of cryptocurrencies than would be expected.
While Gensler’s stance on cryptocurrencies appears difficult to deduce, there is no questioning his exposure. After serving as Obama’s CFTC chair, Gensler went on to assume a pivotal role in both MIT’s Business School and its Media Lab branch. The chair-elect’s name invokes memories of regulators’ attempts to classify Bitcoin, with Gensler himself stating that the token would best fit in the securities category.
Later, he revealed that he classifies both Ethereum and Ripple tokens as securities, and once again demonstrated his connection to the sector by putting forth an in-depth report whose purpose was to simplify crypto regulation for Congress members.
The public at large might know him best for his showing during the House of Representatives’ Finance Committee’s hearing on Facebook’s Libra coin. Lawmakers were notably less enthusiastic about the coin’s prospects than Facebook’s team, with Gensler highlighting the threat that the proprietary token could pose to the global financial system.
On the flip side, Gensler didn’t hesitate to point to the benefits brought by the new technology. Market watchers are likely aware of the attempts and desires of various central banks to digitalize their currencies. Talks of a digital yuan, which began circulating in full force around a year ago, spurred a movement for a greenback counterpart, and several nations offered to assist U.S. officials in order to expedite the development of a digital dollar. The goal was to avoid giving China too big of a market advantage by allowing it to be the sole issuer of a central bank digital currency (CBDC).
Although it is decentralized and essentially unrelated to any tentative sovereign CBDC, Gensler found Bitcoin to be a powerful driver of cryptocurrency talks among central bankers and related entities, likely due to the top token’s ever-growing mainstream popularity. Similarly, to the still-contested election, the direction that Gensler would envision for cryptocurrencies in his role as the head of the team isn’t clear. Yet the sheer weight of his past involvement brings one to believe that Biden is aiming for a hands-on approach with crypto. The interest would definitely be prudent, as election uncertainty over the past week has pushed Bitcoin towards the $16,000 mark for the first time since 2017, with most other altcoins following in its wake.
