Thread by @RepTomEmmer

Just finished reviewing Biden’s Executive Order on Digital Assets… Here are a few thoughts:

As expected, this Executive Order directs various federal agencies to study benefits and risks of digital assets to our economy/global competitiveness and provide legislative recommendations.

Crypto, tokenization, blockchain, NFTs, smart contracts, & stablecoins are powering a more viable economic structure with individual autonomy. As a country, it’s imperative that we develop a strategy to foster this innovation.

(The @BlockCaucus has been advancing a pro-crypto legislative and oversight agenda for the past 8 years.)

Sec. 1 findings of the EO are sound: We have a national interest in fostering digital asset innovation. The rest of the EO focuses on consumer protection, systemic risks, global competitiveness, international standards, and placing guardrails on code to make sure its resilient.

Now, let’s read between the lines:

1) Decentralization is the Point: The EO doesn’t mention decentralization once. The disintermediation of our economy will enable all Americans, regardless of circumstance, to decide their futures, not a bank or Big Tech or the government.

Given this Admin’s regulatory posture toward the crypto community, we have no reason to assume that the directives in the EO will yield results that appropriately acknowledge the importance of leading w. digital asset policies that prioritize open, permissionless, & private tech.

2) The EO places the “highest urgency” on the agencies to study CBDCs. Any commonsense analysis of a potential U.S. CBDC that is not open, permissionless, and private would illuminate that the very idea is an entire nonstarter and a disservice to Americans.

3) Most fortunately, the EO doesn’t ask the SEC to weigh in. SEC Chair Gensler has spent the past year intimidating crypto innovators and entrepreneurs with his unproductive regulation by public statement and enforcement action. His input is not critical.

Overall, it’s critical that we maintain tech and economic leadership on the global stage and I look forward to continuing to work to find bipartisan solutions to keep our great crypto community right here in the United States.