Waiting on the executive order: how users and financial professionals may benefit from it

cointelegraph.com:

United States President Joe Biden’s Executive Order on Ensuring Responsible Development of Digital Assets was widely praised for acknowledging cryptocurrency and blockchain technology’s place in the world and setting the U.S. on a path toward more comprehensive regulation of the sector. The order, or EO, sets a research agenda that encompasses consumer protection, financial stability, crime and national security, U.S. leadership, servicing the underbanked and responsible development.

With a number of reports being commissioned for delivery over the course of months and no specific actions prescribed, it is impossible to gauge the effect the order will ultimately have on the sector, or even foresee how its goals will be met. However, that does not prevent some conclusions from being drawn from other things that are not in the text of the EO.

Senator Cynthia Lummis, a highly visible proponent of crypto, commented, “I think his executive order misses the fact that the overwhelming majority of digital asset users are law-abiding and trying to make our financial system better.”

Lummis’ comment points to the emphasis in the EO on crime-stopping, with three reports coming out related to that area. Market building received far less explicit attention. Consumer protection was brought to the front and center with the demand for input from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission was seemingly given a more prominent place in the EO than the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Aaron Cutler, partner at Hogan Lovells and former senior adviser to majority leader Eric Cantor, did not read much meaning into the relative amounts of ink devoted to the various regulatory agencies. Cutler told