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Even “Crypto Mom” signaled she’s no fan of Coinbase Global Inc.’s pitch to create a new regulator to police digital tokens.
Hester Peirce, a Republican member of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, said there’s already so many Washington watchdogs monitoring the financial industry that it hardly makes sense for the government to get even bigger.
“Personally, I don’t think that’s necessary,” Peirce said in a Thursday interview with Bloomberg Television’s Alix Steel as part of the Bloomberg Financial Innovation Summit. “We have such a fragmented regulatory system for financial products and services generally that I don’t know that adding another regulator would be my top preference,” Peirce added, without mentioning Coinbase by name.
Peirce’s vocal support of virtual coins has earned her the affectionate nickname “Crypto Mom” from token enthusiasts. With one of the industry’s biggest defenders in Washington pushing back on Coinbase’s proposal, it’s hard to see a path for it happening anytime soon.
Coinbase, the U.S.’s biggest crypto exchange, unveiled its plan last month, with Chief Policy Analyst Faryar Shirzad arguing that virtual tokens are so new and unique that they shouldn’t be subjected to “legacy regulation.”
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