Regulators are preventing a crypto-fueled economic meltdown

I'd prefer to see the stuff just banned, already. But what's going on is righteous, especially if you think about what would be happening with right-wingers in charge.

The implosion of what’s been unmasked as a criminal enterprise at FTX has created a chain reaction, where lost faith, pullbacks on trading volume, and potentially similar schemes at FTX competitors are devastating the nascent asset class. It should reinforce the fact that the government’s success in keeping crypto out of the broader financial system was the most important regulatory action of the past decade. We rarely give enough credit to agencies that prevent something from happening; it’s hard to prove a negative, as they say. But if we manage to get out of this cycle without a recession, we will have the banking regulators, primarily Gary Gensler at the Securities and Exchange Commission, to thank...

Hedge funds that have done business with Binance are receiving subpoenas related to federal investigations around compliance with anti–money laundering laws. Meanwhile, the SEC, along with securities regulators in Texas, has filed objections to Binance’s acquisition of assets from a bankrupt lender named Voyager Digital.

Perhaps the most important move by the banking regulators did not involve a specific crypto firm or token. The Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (in early January) issued a joint statement that essentially told large banks to rethink any inkling of holding crypto assets in their portfolios. After detailing the numerous risks from crypto—including fraud and scams, misrepresentations and poor risk management from crypto companies, high volatility, legal uncertainties, and the potential for digital versions of old-time bank runs—the regulators stated: “It is important that risks related to the crypto-asset sector that cannot be mitigated or controlled do not migrate to the banking system.”

While the joint statement went on to say that banks aren’t legally prohibited or discouraged from providing any permitted services to customers, you didn’t have to read between the lines to get the regulators’ point. They don’t want to see major banks investing in a bunch of crypto at this point, and they will be watching closely any transactions of that type. “Issuing or holding as principal crypto-assets … is highly likely to be inconsistent with safe and sound banking practices,” the regulators wrote. - The American Prospect