Despite a recent crypto executive order from Joe Biden and California announcing it’s going to examine crypto risks billionaire investor David Rubenstein says Congress isn’t likely to implement wide-scale regulation of the crypto industry.
David Rubenstein on the Future of Politics and Crypto
In a recent interview, Rubenstein said crypto – despite what many analysts claim – is not that different from many of the world’s other emerging new technologies, and as those technologies aren’t being subjected to mass regulatory tactics, he doesn’t think crypto will be placed in a separate category.
He stated:
Anything that comes along when people don’t really know what it is at the beginning – the Internet, e-commerce, Twitter, whatever it might be – it takes time for people to get used to it. Now, cryptocurrencies are well known. They’ve been around for quite some time, more than a decade.
Rubenstein also said one of the big reasons crypto has gotten so big in recent years is because young people seem to really be interested in it. They are not necessarily into trading stocks or precious metals, but they have really shown affection for bitcoin and its altcoin cousins. He says:
I think people who are younger tend to feel it’s a good investment or good to own some of it. Many younger people think people in my generation have managed to devalue the currency or have borrowed so much money that the currency isn’t worth what it’s supposed to be worth.
This is a sentiment echoed by Nicole Valentine, the fintech director of the Center for Financial Markets at the Milken Institute. In a recent statement, she commented:
Millennials and Gen Z are the influencer generations, and they’re also the social generations, the community generations, and it just makes sense that now they’re the crypto generations. So, with respect to fintech, the digital demand, the digitized demand in fintech is coming from the millennials and gen Z.
Rubenstein’s comments go against those of people like Gary Gensler, the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Gensler has always been a huge advocate for crypto regulation, mentioning not too long ago:
We need additional congressional authorities to prevent transactions, products, and platforms from falling between regulatory cracks. We also need more resources to protect investors in this growing and volatile sector.
There Will Be Resistance
Rubenstein concluded by stating that it would be a huge problem if regulation hit the industry. He said:
I think if the U.S. government said it was going to increase regulation – it’s talked about it for some time – you’re likely to get a firestorm from Congress. Congress has a lot of people who seem to like cryptocurrencies, or at least they are close to the people who like cryptocurrencies, and I suspect you’ll find a lot of resistance.
