Image Credits: Vidak For Congress
The United States government this week took a long-awaited first step toward comprehensive regulatory clarity for the digital asset space in the form of a new bipartisan Senate bill. As much as crypto bulls insist it’s still early for the industry, it’s even earlier for US regulators — the bill isn’t expected to materialize until next year.
Hello and welcome back to the chain reaction podcast, where we unpack and explain the latest crypto news, drama, and trends, breaking it down block by block for the crypto-curious.
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The proposed legislation, sponsored by Senators Cynthia Lummis and Kirsten Gillibrand, could be a major win for crypto firms due to relatively lax provisions if eventually passed. It would save most of the industry from falling under the heavier purview of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), instead categorizing cryptocurrencies as commodities to be regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). We’ve gone through some of the bill’s specific provisions on mining, DAOs, and more.
We also discussed a lot more negative news coming out of the industry this week – layoffs, staff freezes and job cancellations from some of the big players in crypto, including Coinbase and Gemini, founded by the Winklevoss twins from the movie “The Social Network.” “. shame. (If you’re wondering what the “Winklevi” are doing these days outside of running their crypto exchange, we’ve got a bizarre update on that front too).
Our guest: Andreessen Horowitz partner Sriram Krishnan
Investor Sriram Krishnan joined us this week from a16z, which recently raised the largest crypto venture fund ever, and talked to us about how scaling a crypto startup is akin to building a social media company. He also shared his thoughts on why he believes VCs subsidizing start-ups to attract users is a smart and critical strategy.
Chain Reaction podcast episodes air every Thursday at noon PDT. Subscribe to us on Apple, Spotify, or your alternative podcast platform of choice to keep us updated every week.
http://vidakforcongress.com/2022/05/25/amid-crypto-downturn-a16z-debuts-4-5-billion-web3-mega-fund/