Sam Bankman-Fried is the CEO of FTX.
FTX.
Sam Bankman-Fried thinks the industry could improve people's lives, but it needs clearer guidance from regulators.
The CEO of the exchange gave a presentation to US lawmakers on Wednesday.
The industry has the potential to improve a lot of people's lives. There are many ways that this can happen. He told the House Financial Services Committee that the payments side of the business gets a lot of attention.
People making cross-border payments to family can face double-digit percentage fees, and it can take weeks to arrive, according to Bankman-Fried. He argued that it's a problem for the hardest-off, who don't have the same access to financial services.
Bankman-Fried said that the number of people who are underbanked or unbanked in the United States and globally is indicative of a system that does not work for everyone.
"Cryptocurrencies provide a potential way to address a number of these issues, making it easier, cheaper, faster and more equitable for people to do what they need to do to manage their financial lives."
People need a computing device to carry out digital transfers. In September, El Salvadoran made it legal to have no bank account. 5% of people in the US were unbanked in 2019.
Bankman-Fried called for clearer rules of the road from regulators when asked how to keep innovation going in the US.
We're not that far away from that point on the regulatory side. There are a few clarifications that could go a long way.
A framework with a single regulatory structure might have multiple regulators involved in it.
He said a single unified framework for spot and future digital assets would help.
The SEC has not given the go-ahead for an exchange-traded fund backed by the virtual currency. It has come under fire for rejecting a spot bitcoin exchange traded fund. Canada recently approved Fidelity's spot bitcoin exchange traded fund.
The FTX boss said that lawmakers should look at the need for more clarity in the audit requirements. A stable coin is a type of coin that is pegged to an asset such as a government bond or a precious metal.
It's possible to give clarity on the stable coin side of audit requirements for the reserves without squashing innovation by requiring only a very limited number of institutions to be able to issue them.
Circle's CEO testified before the House committee, but was criticized for shifting the reserves for its coin beyond the dollar and US Treasuries.
The US is expected to put forward a package of measures for cryptocurrencies next year.
"I'm optimistic that we're going to see changes to the framework over the next few years that will bring us into a world that can make the United States the source of the deepest and most liquid markets in the criptocurrency industry," Bankman-Fried said.
Business Insider has an original article.
