Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Senator, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Representative, have taken regulators with their hands and asked them to clarify their rules around ex-employees seeking jobs in the crypto industry.
The news site Punchbowl published the letters in which Elizabeth and Alexandria have taken regulators with their hands. According to Punchbowl, they sent these letters to seven agencies. The two primary regulators responsible for crypto are also on this seven list, CFTC, Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and SEC, the Securities and Exchange Commission.
In the letters sent to regulator agencies, the lawmakers, Senator Elizabeth and Representative Alexandria asked how long individuals are stopped from taking a role in an industry with which they interacted while working in their regulatory positions. Thesy also asked how many safeguards are in place to protect against conflicts of interest.
Citing reports from Public Citizen and Tech Transparency Project, the lawmakers also said that the crypto sector has rapidly escalated its lobbying efforts in recent months. The letter reads that crypto firms have hired hundreds of ex-government officials as part of this influence campaign.
Not only Elizabeth and Alexandria signed these letters, but also Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Jesús G. “Chuy” García, and Rashida Tlaib.
The lawmakers said in the letters that they had long been aware of the revolving door in other sectors of the economy, such as Big Tech, the financial services sector, and the defense industry. They said that the crypto revolving door risks corrupting the policymaking process. Moreover, they said it could undermine the public’s trust in their financial regulators.
It’s not the first time Senator Elizabeth has taken voice, but she has been an outspoken critic of the crypto industry. At the start of this month, she led a group of lawmakers regarding information about the energy usage of Bitcoin mining in Texas. However, the crypto industry has been facing opposition from politicians and others in the technology sector for a long time.
