During a recent interview, U.S. Senator Jon Tester (D-MT) shared his thoughts on crypto.
Tester’s comments about crypto were made in response to a question by Chuck Todd, the host of NBC’s “Meet the Press” program.
When Todd asked Tester if crypto should be banned or regulated, the senior senator of Montana replied:
“Look, one or the other… It’s not been able to pass the smell test for me. I have not been able to find anybody who’s been able to explain to me what’s there other than synthetics…
“And the problem is that if we regulate it … it may give it the ability of people to think it’s real… Truth be known, my personal thought — and i’m not a regulator and I’m not a financial person that does regulation — but i see no reason why this stuff should exist.“
On 14 December 2022, U.S. Senator Pat Toomey (R-PA) explained during a hearing of the Senate Banking Committee that what caused the collapse of FTX was not crypto but the exchange’s bad behavior. Toomey’s comments were made during the “Crypto Crash: Why the FTX Bubble Burst and the Harm to Consumers” hearing of the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.
Toomey, who is retiring from his Pennsylvania Senate seat in a few weeks, said:
“The code committed no crime. FTX and cryptocurrencies are not the same thing. FTX was opaque, centralized and dishonest. Cryptocurrencies usually are open source, decentralized, and transparent. To those who think this episode justifies banning crypto — and i’ve actually heard that suggested — I’m asking to think about several other historical parallels.
“The 2008 financial crisis involved obvious misuse of products related to mortgages. Did we decide to ban mortgages? Of course, not. Commodity brokerage firm run by former New Jersey Senator Jon Corzine collapsed after customer funds including U.S. dollars were misappropriated to fill a shortfall from the firm’s trading losses. Nobody suggests that the problem was the U.S. dollar or that we should ban.
“With FTX, the problem is not the instruments that were used. The problem was the misuse of customer funds, gross mismanagement, and likely illegal behavior.“
According to a report by Cointelegraph, he went on to say:
“Some of my colleagues have suggested somehow pausing cryptocurrency before we pass legislation. This is a profoundly misguided not to mention impossible idea. Short of enacting draconian authoritarian policies, cryptocurrency cannot be stopped.“
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