Bloomberg: Lack of regulation may "destroy" the future of the crypto industry

BlockBeats News, January 20 — An editorial from the Bloomberg Editorial Board pointed out that although the U.S. Congress is attempting to establish a legal framework for digital assets, encouraging innovation while curbing illegal activities, this effort is likely to struggle due to weakened regulatory authority and insufficient resources.

The article mentions that the stablecoin regulation bill, the “Genius Act,” disperses key responsibilities across multiple regulatory agencies, with the crucial Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) having been significantly “weakened” after layoffs and cyberattacks. Another bill, the “Clarity Act,” could potentially diminish the SEC’s authority by classifying most tokens under the jurisdiction of the CFTC, which has a budget only one-sixth of the SEC’s and similarly lacks personnel and enforcement capacity.

Meanwhile, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), which previously handled consumer complaints related to crypto, has been almost “dismantled,” further weakening the regulatory system.

Bloomberg believes that pushing digital assets to a broader public and institutional investors without sufficient regulatory capacity could backfire if issues of fraud and crime continue to surface. The article calls for establishing a unified legal framework for all hard-to-classify digital assets (such as Bitcoin and Ethereum), with rules jointly formulated by the SEC and CFTC to ensure market stability, investor protection, and transparency.

The conclusion warns that until Congress truly grants regulatory agencies enough authority, expertise, and resources, the crypto market will still face the realistic risk of “buyer beware.”