Elizabeth Warren Decides To Attack Cryptocurrency And Urge Consumers Not To Invest

Elizabeth Warren, one of the potential 2020 Democratic presidential contenders, is harboring some bad feelings about cryptocurrency. Much like the rest of the naysayers in the industry, she’s been very vocal about her disdain. However, today, she decided to take two big swipes at crypto.

When speaking at the Senate Banking Committee hearing, Warren warned that cryptocurrency tends to be easy to steal, providing the opportunity for small investors to succumb to fraudulent ICOs. Warren said, “The challenge is how to nurture productive aspects of crypto with protecting consumers.

Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown shared the same sentiment, worried that families could invest their savings and ultimately lose it to a fraudulent ICO scam. He would prefer that the financial services be brought to unbanked consumers, but the ratio of real-world applications versus scams is drastic.

Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey came to the defense of cryptocurrency, but in a backhanded way. He said,

“Central banks over time haven’t had the greatest record of preserving the value of their currencies.”

Idaho Senator Mike Crapo believes that there’s a potential benefit for crypto and blockchain, but not right now. He predicted,

“Blockchain networks have the potential to improve processes for things like smart contracts, payments and settlement, identity management and even things yet undiscovered.”

He still finds price volatility and pump-and-dump schemes to be the culprit of the majority of the problems.

Senator Doug Jones from Alabama said that the cause of his reserved approach to cryptocurrency is due to the skill level of criminals, who are often more ahead in technology than law enforcement. Countering that argument, CoinCenter Research Chief Peter Van Valkenburg claims that the agencies have an impressive rate of effectiveness in catching the criminal that try to commit these crimes. He believes that this can be solved by putting the responsibility of crypto oversight to the federal government. He said,

“Federal pre-emption of state cryptocurrency regulation would be a wide choice that would make America a world leader and protect consumers.”

Van Valkenburg said that policymakers should get gently involved with cryptocurrency, much in the same way that the Clinton administration did with the internet. With this approach, he thinks that the industry will progress with the same level of success as the World Wide Web.

NYU Economist Nouriel Roubini did not hesitate to attack this optimistic view, criticizing the problems with security. Some of those issues were credited to the shady and non-transparent jurisdictions that also allow cryptocurrency, like China, Russia, Georgia, and Belarus.

Though Bitcoin has remained safe from hacking, Roubini went on to warn the committee that millions of traders, sellers, and buyers have experienced hacking at a variety of scales. With traditional currency, there is a much more urgent need to stop theft or fraudulent charges.

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