By George Ward
A former White House Chief of Staff, Mick Mulvaney, recently revealed that the United States is on the verge of implementing regulatory reforms for the digital assets industry. The former Trump administration official believes the passage of federal crypto regulations before the year’s end is possible.
A Bipartisan Crypto Reform
According to Mick Mulvaney, former Congressman and Chief of Staff to the former president of the United States, Donald Trump, the crypto reform legislation is not limited to a single political party. It is a continuous process that began with Trump’s administration and is set to continue with president Joe Biden’s tenure.
Mulvaney noted that Democrats are not all on one side, while Republicans are not on the other, and that the current Congress has the time to do the needful before the next election cycle. He added that lawmakers have the time to ensure a meaningful piece of legislature for the blockchain and crypto industry.
Mulvaney has an impressive resume to his name during his various stints in government. He spent six years in the US House of Representatives and headed the Office of Management and Budget from 2017 to 2020.
In addition, he also served as the United States Special Envoy to Northern Ireland before his resignation in January 2021, the same day Trump’s supporters occupied the Capitol Hill Building. The former White House official is a strategic adviser to the Switzerland-based Web3 know-your-customer (KYC) platform, Astra Protocol.
Mulvaney On Centralized Vs. Decentralized Finance
The former US Congressman reportedly has had interests in Bitcoin and blockchain technology for nearly a decade. In 2016, Mulvaney co-founded the Congressional Blockchain Caucus; he sees decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols as more well-rounded than their centralized counterparts.
With the rapid evolution of the DeFi ecosystem, it is now possible for developers to integrate compliance features like KYC and Anti-Money Laundering to assure regulators of their commitment to regulatory compliance. On centralized platforms, Mulvaney explained that there is a weakness in the system because most of the fraud incidents in the crypto space can be attributed to centralized protocols.
According to him, DeFi comes with an additional layer of security that enhances transparency, making it difficult for malicious activities to occur. The ex-government official added that over the past few years, DeFi has shown that it is the better system, and regulatory agencies are beginning to come to terms with it.
Furthermore, the former Trump administration’s financial manager noted that the recent banking crisis was avoidable. The collapse of the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) was seen as the ground zero in this contagion, especially by Senator Elizabeth Warren.
The senator reportedly blamed the Trump administration for weakening bank rules that might have prevented the SVB bust or other similar ones. Meanwhile, Mulvaney argued that regulators dropped the ball as the collapse shows a management failure with a bank that deals with crypto clients.
He believes this was not a crypto-induced problem but a failure of the bank regulator.