Oklahoma’s Frank Lucas could be key congressman in cryptocurrency regulation

And he’s. A farmer and rancher himself, Lucas is a former Home Agriculture Committee chairman and was accountable for the 2014 farm invoice.

However Lucas can be a “finance man” and is in an uncommon place to affect laws arising from the FTX cryptocurrency collapse. When the 118th Congress gavels in on Jan. 3, Lucas expects to be a senior member of the bulk on two committees with the potential for important crypto duties.

Lucas has been a member of what’s now the Home Monetary Providers Committee since shortly after he entered Congress in 1994 and is its longest-serving Republican. He additionally expects to return to the Agriculture Committee after a several-year hiatus.

Ag’s involvement in cryptocurrency would possibly shock some, nevertheless it oversees the Commodity Futures Buying and selling Fee, or CFTC. The general public most associates the CFTC with hog bellies and grain futures, nevertheless it additionally regulates complicated monetary devices — which is what many think about cryptocurrency to be, Lucas stated.

Monetary Providers regulates the Securities and Change Fee, whose primary job is policing markets towards fraud and manipulation. Some individuals imagine cryptocurrency falls into that class, too.

In a cellphone interview Wednesday, Lucas stated a precise course is but to be decided however that regulation is clearly so as after the spectacular collapse of FTX and the arrest of its 30-year-old founder, Sam Bankman-Fried.

“It’s the Wild West surroundings we have been working in that has given individuals who have been good salesmen or slick con males, nonetheless you need to describe it, the power to control and safe huge assets,” Lucas stated.

“That bubble has now burst,” he stated. “If crypto goes to live on, then it is bought to be regulated in a manner that displays — we will not simply have the Wild West any extra.”

Lucas stated some Democrats need to outlaw crypto altogether, whereas some Republicans “suppose that is the way forward for all foreign money transactions.”

Lucas stated he is someplace in between however has been proactively cautioning constituents since final summer time to speculate in cryptocurrency solely cash they’ll afford to lose.

“As we noticed with the FTX collapse in the previous couple of days, even probably the most refined, big-time traders and funding funds have been burned down,” Lucas stated.

Incoming Monetary Providers Chairman Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, Lucas stated, “could be very targeted that if we will proceed to have these things now we have to have legal guidelines and rules.”

“I do not understand how unhealthy it’ll be when this all works its manner out, however it’ll be unhealthy.” 

FTX is a world cryptocurrency alternate that plunged out of business final month after studies that Bankman-Fried had overstated its worth and maybe looted its belongings.

John Ray, the caretaker CEO of FTX, informed a Monetary Providers Committee listening to on Tuesday that solely about $1 billion of as much as $7 billion invested within the firm has been discovered.

A few of the cash apparently went to members of Congress as marketing campaign contributions. Lucas doesn’t appear to have obtained any of it.

Lucas is scheduled to change into chairman of the Home Science, Area and Know-how Committee and can want a waiver from GOP management to serve on all three committees, however he indicated that he believes that can occur.

Apart from an apparent disdain for Bankman-Fried and a priority for traders, Lucas didn’t reveal a lot about his expectations for cryptocurrency regulation.

“Finally we’ll know if he was a idiot or a criminal,” Lucas stated, “however he introduced himself because the surprise boy who was smarter than everybody else, who may see and do issues nobody else may perceive. Now I anticipate he’ll be a visitor of the US authorities for an extended, very long time.”

“I am afraid there’s going to be plenty of my constituents who’ve actually had their retirement futures made quite a bit worse due to this man.”