8 US Lawmakers Urge SEC to Stop Crippling Crypto and Stifling Innovation – Eight US lawmakers have written to the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to express their concerns about how the agency obtains data from cryptocurrency companies. The SEC’s “requests” for information, according to the crypto community, are “overburdensome, don’t feel especially voluntary, and are suffocating innovation.”
Representatives Tom Emmer, Ritchie Torres, Warren Davidson, Darren Soto, Jake Auchincloss, Ted Budd, Byron Donalds, and Josh Gottheimer sent a bipartisan letter to Gary Gensler, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), about how the SEC obtains information from cryptocurrency and blockchain companies.
In a tweet, Congressman Emmer explained why the letter was written:
“My office has received various indications from crypto and blockchain businesses that SEC Chair Gary Gensler’s information reporting requests’ to the crypto sector are excessive,” the statement reads. “They’re self-imposed, and they stifle innovation.”
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Rep. Warren Davidson tweeted, “We must encourage American innovation rather than stifle it with selective enforcement, irrational mix of bad regulation, and continuing inaction.” “Rep. Tom Emmer and I signed a letter to SEC Chair Gary Gensler denouncing the SEC’s crippling of cryptocurrency in the US,” he stated.
In their letter to Gensler, the lawmakers wrote, “It appears there’s been a recent trend towards the use of the Enforcement Division’s investigative operations to collect information from uncontrolled blockchain and cryptocurrency industry participants in a way that is incompatible with the Commission’s guidelines for initiating investigations.”
The legislators emphasized:
We have grounds to think these requests are in violation of the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA).
“Federal agencies must be outstanding stewards of the public’s time in obtaining information from the American people,” according to the legislation, “and not overload them with unnecessary or duplicative requests for information.”
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“Federal agencies must be outstanding stewards of the public’s time in obtaining information from the American people,” according to the legislation, “and not overload them with unnecessary or duplicative requests for information.”
The following points were highlighted by Congressman Emmer:
“Crypto enterprises should not be hampered by extra-jurisdictional and complex reporting obligations. We will ensure that American ingenuity and opportunity are not suffocated by our regulators.”
According to the letter, the SEC must respond to 13 questions by April 29th.