Home / Capital & Crypto / Ohio Congressman Wants to ‘Eliminate’ SEC Jurisdiciton over Crypto Industry: Report

Ohio Congressman Wants to ‘Eliminate’ SEC Jurisdiciton over Crypto Industry: Report

Last Updated March 4, 2021 3:10 PM
P. H. Madore
Last Updated March 4, 2021 3:10 PM

Now that Bitcoiner Jared Polis has left Congress for the Colorado Governor’s Mansion, support both moral and material for the crypto industry in Washington, DC may be seen as lacking. While it is largely unelected bureaucrats who rule the financial arena in this country and occasionally make brash decisions in regards to innovative technologies like cryptocurrency, all agencies and employees of the federal government eventually answer to Congress and its purse strings.

Recently re-elected Ohio Rep. Warren Davidson, a Republican from the 8th district of that state, is remarkably opposed to regulations which may have a strangling effect on the economy — particularly regulations as regards the nation’s vibrant ICO scene and cryptocurrencies more broadly. A recent article in the Washington Examiner  confirms that Davidson remains committed to the cause of restricting repressive regulations at the federal level, perhaps even more so than he had originally signaled.

CCN.com earlier reported that Davidson had invited a number of crypto companies to Capitol Hill to discuss the situation on the ground on September 25. His office issued a press release  on that day summarizing Davidson’s stance as favoring “light touch” regulation, and a representative from his office confirmed to the Examiner staff that he would be introducing a bill – a timeline was not set, but Congress will only be working a few weeks out of the remainder of the year, so it’s safe to expect something next year, but perhaps unreasonable to expect anything this year.

The bill Davidson aims to introduce will seek to exempt ICOs from securities legislation by legally defining them as products, enabling them to skirt several forms of regulation which currently bedevil many in the cryptocurrency ecosystem as well as add various types of costs to the industry — for example, securities lawyers.

From the report:

“A spokesman for Davidson confirmed that the Ohio Republican plans to introduce a bill that would allow ICOs to sidestep securities law, including at the state level, and eliminate the SEC’s jurisdiction over the industry by treating the currencies as products, rather than securities.”

Davidson has not named any co-conspirators in his intended legal hack of the financial system. And while his intentions may be genuine and certainly worthy of note within the crypto space, the Examiner notes that it is unlikely that the incoming Democratic majority will get joyfully on board with any form of crypto deregulation strategy, though the Congressional Blockchain Caucus has historically featured a bipartisan membership.

New York Democrat Carolyn Maloney, for instance, kept her house seat in a landslide of more than 85 percent. She has previously gone on the record as being wary of cryptocurrencies and ICOs.

Maloney serves alongside Warren Davidson on the House Financial Services Committee and has been in Congress more than 20 years to Davidson’s few years. While this is perhaps not remarkable to most crypto enthusiasts, it certainly means something in practice, and Maloney is but one of crypto’s many less-than-friends in the House of Representatives.

Featured Image from Warren Davidson for Congress/YouTube