The Cryptocurrency community was biting it's nails leading up to yesterdays Senate Banking Committee hearing with the SEC and CFTC regarding cryptocurrencies.
The markets as you know have been down and we've been getting hit with FUD and bad news day after day after day which continued to drive markets lower. I think the markets collectively were holding their breaths to see how the Senate as well as the commissioner of the SEC Jay Clayton and CFTC Michael Giancarlo addressed cryptocurrency.
I initially had said short of banning exchanges or banning crypto entirely, anything to come out of the meeting would be positive, even if it was bad news because at least the market had some certainty and some idea how the government viewed crypto as well as how they were planning on treating it or regulating it.
I was impressed with the level of knowledge and clarity Clayton and Giancarlo had on cryptocurrencies as a whole. There were some stupid lines of questioning and some dumb comments by Senators but overall I was very impressed by how level headed and open everyone was as well as the knowledgebase of most people involved in the meeting.
One of the highlights of the meeting was Giancarlo dropping the term "hodl" on the Senate banking committee floor. He talked about how his niece and young people are more interested in cryptocurrency and blockchain technology than they are in the stock market and how they should respect that and foster innovation as opposed to standing in the way of it.
He talked about taking a "do no harm" aproach which to me shows he knows the government has the power to negatively affect the crypto markets and they want to regulate the markets without stiffling them or tanking them, make no mistake though regulation is comming.
The biggest area for regulation IMHO is going to be not allowing countries like North Korea and Venezuela among others to use crypto to evade sanctions. They are definitely going to have strong anti money laundering and KYC requirements in the space and ICO"s are probably the biggest thing that's going to be cracked down on.
Comments were made that they havn't seen a single ICO which wouldn't qualify as a security and that no ICO's have registered as securities. Moving forward I think ICO's will only be for institutions and accredited investors or potentially US Citizens will just be locked out entirely.
Overall I felt the meeting was very positive. Markets have reacted favorably to the meeting and the crypto community as a whole on social media seems to have come together and be celebrating today, and have a much more positive outlook from what I see on social media.
Audio From Senate Banking Committee Hearing
https://www.c-span.org/video/?440770-1/jay-clayton-christopher-giancarlo-testify-hearing-virtual-currencies