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Coinbase Chief Policy Officer Faryar Shirzad speaks on stage during the Concordia 2024 Annual Summit at the Sheraton New York Times Square on September 24, 2024 in New York City.
John Lamparski | Getty Images for Concordia Summit
LONDON ā Coinbase’s top political executive expects the United States to quickly regulate the cryptocurrency industry once Donald Trump becomes president.
Faryar Shirzad, Coinbase’s chief policy officer, told CNBC that he sees crypto legislation moving through Congress “pretty quickly” after the Republican president-elect, who ran on a notoriously pro-crypto policy platform, enters in the White House.
The Republican Party too achieved a government trifectagaining control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate. This, Shirzad suggested, should make the process of passing crypto laws even easier.
“We have the most pro-crypto Congress ever (in) history, we have an extraordinarily pro-crypto president coming into office,” Shirzad told CNBC last week at an event hosted by the British division of the advocacy group backed by Coinbase Stand With Crypto. .
“I believe the combination should finally allow the 50 million Americans who own crypto to have their interests and voices heard in politics.”
His comments come as two key pieces of crypto-related legislation make their way through Congress.
One is sponsored by the Republicans Financial innovation and technology law for the 21st centurywhich aims to establish a legal framework for digital assets. This bill passed the House of Representatives earlier this year.
The other is the Clarity for Payment Stablecoins Acta bill that seeks to establish a regulatory regime to authorize issuers of stablecoins ā tokens tied to the value of fiat currencies like the dollar. The stablecoin bill has yet to pass a House vote.
Shirzad told CNBC that he is “optimistic” that the legislation will pass, but noted that there is only a “small” chance that crypto legislation will be considered in the so-called “lame duck” post-election period.
Even if Congress doesn’t greenlight crypto laws this year, Shirzad expects “significant movement and we hope to see both market structure legislation and stablecoin legislation passed” in 2025.
The lobbying power of Crypto
Trump’s election victory marked a major victory for the crypto industry, but it also highlighted the power of the crypto lobbying machine.
According to data from the Federal Election Commission, crypto-related political action committees (PACs), organizations that pool member donations to fund campaigns, and other industry-linked groups raised more than $245 million.
Meanwhile, the Coinbase-backed Stand With Crypto Alliance developed a rating system to determine how pro- and anti-crypto candidates for the House and Senate were. Nearly 300 pro-crypto lawmakers will take seats in the House and Senate, according to Stand With Crypto.
Last month, US Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler announced that he would step down on January 20, the date of Trump’s inauguration. Trump had long promised to replace Gensler, who has taken an aggressive approach to crypto oversight in his time as SEC chairman.
Shirzad said he can’t predict who Trump’s SEC pick will be, but said the president-elect is “very good at picking people who share his vision and he had a very comprehensive platform on crypto.”
“I think as long as they elect someone who is an agent of change and who shares their vision, I think it will be good for America, good for society, good for people who own crypto,” he added.
