US Lawmaker – Crypto Regulations Should Be Top Priority For Congress

New calls to regulate the US cryptocurrency industry have been made by Representative Bill Huizenga, a key member of the Financial Services Committee.

According to a Bloomberg report, the lawmaker says that within the next year, Congress should focus on making rules for the “muddied and fairly opaque” crypto markets in order to protect investors.

To this effect, Huizenga suggests that Congress should work closely with existing regulators like the Securities Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to oversee the space.

Even though some rules similar to those now governing stocks or other currency markets can be applied to the virtual market, the lawmaker admits that the major difficulty facing regulators is how to classify digital currency.

“Everyone’s trying to figure out whether it’s fish or fowl,” he said. “It turns out it might be a platypus. It’s kind of an unknown or something sort of in-between. How do we deal with that?”

Cryptocurrency-related crimes have been on the high side since the markets came into place, with many unsuspecting investors losing money to fraudulent ICOs and other scams promoted using virtual currencies.

With the new call by Huizenga, it has become clear that lawmakers understand that something must be done to improve transparency and investor security in the crypto markets as soon as possible.

If the Republican party maintains control of the house after the upcoming elections then the lawmaker will have a chance to make crypto regulation a top “focus” for Congress and possibly bring full regulation to the US crypto industry.