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Capture US regulatory agencies while you can. This has already had varying levels of success with the Chief Legal Officer of Coinbase being the acting chair of

Capture US regulatory agencies while you can. This has already had varying levels of success with the Chief Legal Officer of Coinbase being the acting chair of the OCC and telling banks it was okay to custody crypto and settle transactions on cryptocurrency networks instead of just SWIFT, ACH, FedWire There are some at the SEC, and the new SEC chair was pro-crypto when he was previously the chair of CFTC Cabinet level positions and the Federal Reserve and Treasury would be ideal If this is important to you, you don't have to be just a passive holder or entrepreneur. Use your platform to assume power. Make the world as comfortable for your generation as older generations did for themselves.

PaywallBuster 6y ago
Crypto exchange owner was 2nd biggest donor to Biden campaign https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/02/sam-bankman-fried-biden-donor.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/02/sam-bankman-fried-bi...
- vmception 6y ago
  Great, yeah a lot of crypto builders thrive in power vacuums. So the Trump administration was convenient for the 2017 bubble, as a debilitated SEC was necessary for the token launches that made issuers millions (and billions). And a paralyzed Congress was necessary to get non-establishment people confirmed who will last many administrations. All of that lost its utility by 2020 as the outcomes were mostly solidified and favorable. I would say it is slightly more than moderately successful. The SEC still hasn't approved a digital commodity trust yet ("bitcoin ETF") but enough wealthy people are involved now that have created surrogates that it isn't as important. Maybe some college kid in the late 2020s will make some Netflix conspiracy documentary about the "revolving door in crypto", I would call that success.
  - medvezhenok 6y ago
    There is also an interesting argument about crypto being a convenient drain for excess liquidity in the system (injected by the stimulus), which is why it's not being regulated too heavily. If stocks & crypto were less appealing, perhaps we would all experience higher velocity of money & inflation since demand would turn to "real assets".
    - vmception 6y ago
      > which is why Extrapolating any competence from policy makers on this is a bit too fantastic of a conclusion at this point in time. Cryptocurrency just does not have an adversarial relationship with the US government, and the musings of some policy makers that create existential threats just are not the opinion of an amorphous entity (which also doesn't exist). The longer the rest of us are familiar with the technology, the more likely the gradient shifts to a less and less probability of adversarial relationship with the US government.
rawtxapp 6y ago
Square, Fidelity and Coinbase joined together to start lobbying group [1]. 1: https://seekingalpha.com/news/3679495-square-fidelity-coinbase-start-cryptocurrency-lobbying-group https://seekingalpha.com/news/3679495-square-fidelity-coinba...
- vmception 6y ago
  The existing crypto lobbying groups were able to get bi-partisan support and co-sponsors for their bills but couldn't get Congress to focus enough to pass things. They got Wyoming and some western states to pass favorable state-level laws though. Let's see how this one does.
joe_the_user 6y ago
Capture US regulatory agencies while you can. I'd perhaps quibble a bit to say US financial regulatory agencies can't be captured in the fashion of traditional regulators (where the "revolving door" is awful). This is because they were "captured from the beginning", operated specifically for the benefit of large financial firm from the very start. The Federal Reserve isn't even a traditional agency but public, private partnership ("has a 'unique structure that is both public and private'). EPA theoretically protects "the environment" a thing outside markets. Financial regulators protect markets. Protecting markets is completely compatible with protecting the profits of the largest players in the markets. So it seems logical regulators will remain "objective" in their assessments. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Reserve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Reserve
- vmception 6y ago
  I'd say they can. Enforcement divisions have sole heads who can make unilateral decisions that the commissioners never review. Commissioners and Chairs can make make rulings favorable or ignore making unfavorable rulings, they can do anything they want regardless of what happens during the comment periods. The CFTC, OCC, CFPB all have single head directors. The SEC has up to 5, and the FRB is the most decentralized but its Board of Governor's head is the primary sole signal to the international market on this entire planet regardless of how much they actually do behind the scenes. The Treasury doesn't have to be adversarial either, no matter how much it wants us to tie our national identity and ego to its currency, not all Treasuries or Central Banks have this concern. Right now, crypto related topics are either ignored or adversarial. Crypto related topics can be collaborative or simply favorable. Capture in this context (and all contexts of regulatory capture) just mean that someone joins for a certain purpose, does all of the other tasks correctly and with high competence, but also makes sure their single issue is protected.
  - joe_the_user 6y ago
    Enforcement divisions have sole heads who can make unilateral decisions that the commissioners never review. I'd just point out that at the end of the day, broad power of social institutions are going to trump the overt lines of command. Capture in this context (and all contexts of regulatory capture) just mean that someone joins for a certain purpose, does all of the other tasks correctly and with high competence, but also makes sure their single issue is protected. Well, Regulatory capture can have a lot of meanings I suppose. One really pernicious phenomena is when things that don't have institutional power on their own ("the environment", "average people's health", overall cyber-security of the country, etc) get shunted aside for particular institutional interests (chemical companies, IoT sellers/consumers etc). This is the umbrella where "regulatory capture" lets these externalities run wild. Now, if you want to use "regulatory capture" as more akin the general phenomena known as "getting a seat at the table", know yourself out. The point is that seats of that allow some special consideration, yes, but you can't carve up existing institutions the EPA can carve up restrictions on pesticides. I wish it was the opposite, obviously but there you are.
InsaneOstrich 6y ago
This all sounds incredibly nefarious
- vmception 6y ago
  Every other industry in the country being an instruction manual. If you ever thought this was going to be about a multi-decade long organic merchant adoption story, you were gullible af.
loceng 6y ago
"Make the world as comfortable for your generation as older generations did for themselves." Make the world as comfortable to the early adopters
loceng 6y ago
"Make the world as comfortable for your generation as older generations did for themselves." Make the world as comfortable for the early adopters [weighted from latest to earliest, so long as you're not left holding the bag] as the older generation had [before regulatory capture via industrial complexes and automation pooled more and more money to fewer and fewer]; FTFY.
- vmception 6y ago
  speculation drives innovation.

PaywallBuster 6y ago

Crypto exchange owner was 2nd biggest donor to Biden campaign https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/02/sam-bankman-fried-biden-donor.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/02/sam-bankman-fried-bi...

vmception 6y ago
Great, yeah a lot of crypto builders thrive in power vacuums. So the Trump administration was convenient for the 2017 bubble, as a debilitated SEC was necessary for the token launches that made issuers millions (and billions). And a paralyzed Congress was necessary to get non-establishment people confirmed who will last many administrations. All of that lost its utility by 2020 as the outcomes were mostly solidified and favorable. I would say it is slightly more than moderately successful. The SEC still hasn't approved a digital commodity trust yet ("bitcoin ETF") but enough wealthy people are involved now that have created surrogates that it isn't as important. Maybe some college kid in the late 2020s will make some Netflix conspiracy documentary about the "revolving door in crypto", I would call that success.
- medvezhenok 6y ago
  There is also an interesting argument about crypto being a convenient drain for excess liquidity in the system (injected by the stimulus), which is why it's not being regulated too heavily. If stocks & crypto were less appealing, perhaps we would all experience higher velocity of money & inflation since demand would turn to "real assets".
  - vmception 6y ago
    > which is why Extrapolating any competence from policy makers on this is a bit too fantastic of a conclusion at this point in time. Cryptocurrency just does not have an adversarial relationship with the US government, and the musings of some policy makers that create existential threats just are not the opinion of an amorphous entity (which also doesn't exist). The longer the rest of us are familiar with the technology, the more likely the gradient shifts to a less and less probability of adversarial relationship with the US government.

rawtxapp 6y ago

Square, Fidelity and Coinbase joined together to start lobbying group [1]. 1: https://seekingalpha.com/news/3679495-square-fidelity-coinbase-start-cryptocurrency-lobbying-group https://seekingalpha.com/news/3679495-square-fidelity-coinba...

vmception 6y ago
The existing crypto lobbying groups were able to get bi-partisan support and co-sponsors for their bills but couldn't get Congress to focus enough to pass things. They got Wyoming and some western states to pass favorable state-level laws though. Let's see how this one does.

joe_the_user 6y ago

Capture US regulatory agencies while you can. I'd perhaps quibble a bit to say US financial regulatory agencies can't be captured in the fashion of traditional regulators (where the "revolving door" is awful). This is because they were "captured from the beginning", operated specifically for the benefit of large financial firm from the very start. The Federal Reserve isn't even a traditional agency but public, private partnership ("has a 'unique structure that is both public and private'). EPA theoretically protects "the environment" a thing outside markets. Financial regulators protect markets. Protecting markets is completely compatible with protecting the profits of the largest players in the markets. So it seems logical regulators will remain "objective" in their assessments. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Reserve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Reserve

vmception 6y ago
I'd say they can. Enforcement divisions have sole heads who can make unilateral decisions that the commissioners never review. Commissioners and Chairs can make make rulings favorable or ignore making unfavorable rulings, they can do anything they want regardless of what happens during the comment periods. The CFTC, OCC, CFPB all have single head directors. The SEC has up to 5, and the FRB is the most decentralized but its Board of Governor's head is the primary sole signal to the international market on this entire planet regardless of how much they actually do behind the scenes. The Treasury doesn't have to be adversarial either, no matter how much it wants us to tie our national identity and ego to its currency, not all Treasuries or Central Banks have this concern. Right now, crypto related topics are either ignored or adversarial. Crypto related topics can be collaborative or simply favorable. Capture in this context (and all contexts of regulatory capture) just mean that someone joins for a certain purpose, does all of the other tasks correctly and with high competence, but also makes sure their single issue is protected.
- joe_the_user 6y ago
  Enforcement divisions have sole heads who can make unilateral decisions that the commissioners never review. I'd just point out that at the end of the day, broad power of social institutions are going to trump the overt lines of command. Capture in this context (and all contexts of regulatory capture) just mean that someone joins for a certain purpose, does all of the other tasks correctly and with high competence, but also makes sure their single issue is protected. Well, Regulatory capture can have a lot of meanings I suppose. One really pernicious phenomena is when things that don't have institutional power on their own ("the environment", "average people's health", overall cyber-security of the country, etc) get shunted aside for particular institutional interests (chemical companies, IoT sellers/consumers etc). This is the umbrella where "regulatory capture" lets these externalities run wild. Now, if you want to use "regulatory capture" as more akin the general phenomena known as "getting a seat at the table", know yourself out. The point is that seats of that allow some special consideration, yes, but you can't carve up existing institutions the EPA can carve up restrictions on pesticides. I wish it was the opposite, obviously but there you are.

InsaneOstrich 6y ago

This all sounds incredibly nefarious

vmception 6y ago
Every other industry in the country being an instruction manual. If you ever thought this was going to be about a multi-decade long organic merchant adoption story, you were gullible af.

loceng 6y ago

"Make the world as comfortable for your generation as older generations did for themselves." Make the world as comfortable to the early adopters

loceng 6y ago

"Make the world as comfortable for your generation as older generations did for themselves." Make the world as comfortable for the early adopters [weighted from latest to earliest, so long as you're not left holding the bag] as the older generation had [before regulatory capture via industrial complexes and automation pooled more and more money to fewer and fewer]; FTFY.

vmception 6y ago
speculation drives innovation.