Blockchain and cryptocurrency venture capitalist firm Andreessen Horowitz has hosted a group of Washington DC-based government and regulatory officials in San Francisco, aiming to promote the benefits of the emerging technologies.
The full-day event took place in May, but news of the private summit has only just been uncovered in a Wall Street Journal report on Monday. The WSJ said that among those present were officials from the Treasury Department, market regualtors the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), as well as representatives from a number of the firms in Andreessen Horowitz’s portfolio.
Co-founder and partner Marc Andreessen is a prominent tech company director, sitting on the boards of Facebook, eBay and Hewlett-Packard Enterprise. The firm was also a founding member of the Libra Association. The emergence of details of the May summit becomes more interesting, therefore, given the timing of Facebook’s subsequent announcement of the Libra cryptocurreny project the following month.
Regulators Remain Cautious
While the company’s aim was to persuade the collection of officials to take a more light-touch regulatory approach to the crypto and blockchain sectors, the Journal said the regulators remained cautious of such an appoach.
Indeed, the representative from the Treasury Department said that many companies needed to improve their compliance with anti-money laundering rules, while J Christopher Giancarlo, former CFTC chairman, emphasized the growing need for crypto regulations.
