• Senator Elizabeth Warren sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen demanding stricter regulations on the crypto industry. 
• In a hearing of the Senate Banking Committee, Warren called crypto users ‘’shadowy, faceless group of super-coders and miners’’ 
• Rich Checkan, the president of Asset Strategies International clapped back, describing central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) as “concocted in hell by Satan himself.” 
• There are always two sides to the story, especially when personal agendas are in the middle of a battlefield. 

Unreasonable Insults? 

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) is one of Congress’s most notorious crypto skeptics. She has expressed her worries about the financial system’s increasing exposure to cryptocurrencies. She believes that issues within the cryptocurrency market could spread throughout the financial sector. 

Not only did Warren send a letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen asking for greater regulation of the crypto industry, but at a hearing of the Senate Banking Committee, she proclaimed crypto puts the system at ‘’the whims of some shadowy, faceless group of super-coders and miners’’ instead of leaving the financial system to the giant banks. 

Yet leaving the financial system to the giant banks is probably the biggest threat here.

There Are Always Two Sides to Every Story 

Many crypto users and supporters are self-proclaimed libertarians and anarcho-capitalists. The supporters of blockchain and crypto technology are largely driven by the vision of transforming the world through the development of new tools for mankind rather than enduring the traditional political process. 

Just like Harvard Business Review described: 

“Contracts, transactions, and the records of them are among the defining structures in our economic, legal, and political systems <…> They’re like a rush-hour gridlock trapping a Formula 1 race car. In a digital world, the way we regulate and maintain administrative control has to change.” 

Even though fundamentals of the vision are potent, the reality is different. Crypto is not exactly that trustworthy in the hands of greedy. Some tokens are under serious scrutiny for concealing transactions that can potentially be linked to money laundering and other felonies.  Anonymous criminals can make payments without going through regulated banking systems.  There are several obstacles crypto needs to overcome to achieve good reputation. 

The same applies to wealthiest who have concentrated all the power into the hands of the few. The state, that is the civil servants, functionaries, bureaucrats and politicians, pretty much anyone who holds a position of authority to allocate rights over public resources in the name of the state or the government are also seeking personal gain and to withhold dominance. Hence, the reason for senators like Warren to “worry” are because these “faceless super-coders” and “shadowy miners” have a chance to take that power away. 

Governments Are Not the Only Ones Yelling  

It’s not only governmental clerks that yell at crypto, sometimes crypto clerks yell at governmental decisions like CBDCs.

For instance, Rich Checkan, the president of Asset Strategies International (ASI) described central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) as “concocted in hell by Satan himself.”  

He thinks that CBDC’s will give incredible control to governments which would lead to “a void of privacy for every individual citizen.”  

Checkan also slammed CBDCs due to the threat they pose to individual privacy by allowing the state to monitor and track every transaction you make throughout your entire life, which would ultimately give them undue power. 

On The Flipside

• It is well known that governments and crypto have continuous fights.  
• While both sides make luring claims, it is important to remember both sides hold their personal agenda.
• No one is perfect. Crypto aims for equality yet makes questionable mistakes, government and central banks otherwise possess immense wealth kept in the hands of the few. 
• When listening to the claims of these two sides let’s not forget to keep an open mind.