The White House prepares to issue an executive order on crypto

The White House, under the Biden administration, is reportedly preparing to issue an order in the coming weeks regarding the country’s actions towards cryptocurrencies according to the source ‘familiar with the White House’s plan’.

The upcoming executive order is said to make federal agencies conduct risk analysis on cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and other tokens. ‘This is designed to look holistically at digital assets and develop a set of policies that give coherence to what the government is trying to do in this space’, the source said. 

Due to the ability of decentralized blockchain technology to find a way around geo-specific regulations, the US administration might decide on synchronized regulations with other countries. This might result in a regulatory framework that covers all digital assets such as cryptos, stablecoins and Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs).

The coming executive order is said to fall under the findings that crypto is a national security threat. This is because government entities have found out that digital assets can be a border tool for shifting money, thus can be used illicitly.

Eric Balchunas, the senior market analyst at the media conglomerate Bloomberg, referred to the news as a ‘broader crypto crackdown’ in his tweet last Friday. He said that the constant rejections of Bitcoin sport exchange-traded funds (ETFs) may be caused by the White House’s views on crypto as a national security threat.

On January 25, House Democrats proposed a piece of legislation regarding the crypto industry called the America COMPETES Act. A provision in the proposed bill would allow the Treasury Secretary to ban crypto exchanges from providing their service without any prior notice to the platforms.

Jerry Brito, the executive director of a non-profit cryptocurrency research and advocacy centre, Coin Center, posted a tweet last Tuesday regarding the legislation. He stated that the provision would be disastrous for cryptocurrency and privacy due to the general processes that they would have to follow.

In addition, the ‘special measures’ are said to give the Treasury Secretary unchecked and unilateral power to ban exchanges and other financial institutions from doing crypto-related activities.

Meanwhile, pleas from crypto industry experts to clarify aspects of the Infrastructure Bill about digital assets are echoing. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has yet to respond to the controversy of their definition of a ‘broker’. A bipartisan group of House representatives said that the Infrastructure Bill’s meaning of ‘broker’ is too broad and should have a narrower scope. This is to prevent creating confusion since some brokers are not required to provide information about senders and receivers such as in crypto.

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