One of the crypto industry’s main participants wants to spark a public discussion about how to effectively integrate digital assets into the regulatory framework.
Coinbase, a cryptocurrency trading platform, released its Digital Asset Policy Proposal on Thursday, a paper that provides both a rationale and conceptual framework for the complete regulation of digital assets in the United States.
The idea was offered by Coinbase as the result of hundreds of discussions with industry players, politicians, crypto pioneers, and academics that the company’s representatives had had in recent weeks.
The company intends for the proposal to “spark an open and constructive debate about the role of digital assets in our shared economic future” and to provide good-faith recommendations on what a reasonable approach to crypto regulation could look like.
The paper begins by listing the advantages of the developing digital finance system for both customers (democratization of financial markets) and regulators (more transparency and new ways to combat illegal activity). Furthermore, the authors argue that rules written in the 1930s are a weak basis for regulating the internet-native asset class and that pushing digital assets into legal frameworks built prior to the computer era may stifle crypto innovation in the United States.
According to Coinbase, a more tailored and thus more constructive approach should be based on four key principles: defining a separate regulatory framework for digital assets; designating a single regulator to oversee digital asset markets; protecting and empowering holders, and promoting interoperability and fair competition.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong argued in a second op-ed published the same day in the Wall Street Journal that the proposed framework is not intended to help his business alone.
While Coinbase is large enough to bear the risks of an uncertain regulatory climate, he believes that smaller companies, retail customers, and the United States’ status as a global technology leader would gain from forward-thinking regulation of the digital asset sector.
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