U.S. Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN) is urging Rohit Chopra, director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, not to stifle innovation in the cryptocurrency space.
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“Digital ledger technology offers a tremendous amount of promise in terms of financial innovation and inclusion. It’s an industry where I think the United States is leading, has led, and I’d like to see us continue to lead there. Especially when we look at other countries like China and the Chinese Communist Party that has moved to ban private sector activity in that arena,” Hagerty, a member of the Senate Banking Committee, said during a hearing last week.
Chopra agreed with Hagerty that the agency should not pick winners and losers using regulation and enforcement.
“I think one of the things that is going to be a priority for me is making sure that regulation and enforcement is not just empowering the incumbents even more. We need more entry, we need more dynamism, we need more innovation, and the way to do that is to not pick winners and losers by crowning incumbents further,” Chopra said.
Hagerty introduced legislation on Sept. 21 — the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Accountability Act of 2021 (S. 2790) — that would require its funding to be appropriated by Congress, like other agencies. Currently, the Federal Reserve is required to provide whatever funding that the CFPB requests within certain limits.