The Biden administration is on the verge of scoring a major victory in its crackdown on cryptocurrencies. According to Fox Business, a resolution seeking to repeal “SAB 121, a cryptocurrency accounting standard of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)” is unlikely to receive enough votes to pass when it returns to the House of Representatives for a vote on Wednesday. In other words, the actions previously vetoed by US President Joe Biden will "not be overturned."
A resolution to repeal SEC Staff Accounting Bulletin 121, also known as SAB 121, would not gain the necessary two-thirds majority in the House of Representatives, people with direct knowledge of the vote said.
The regulation, known as SAB 121, essentially “bans banks from custody of cryptocurrencies.”
Although the House of Representatives voted by a simple majority in May to repeal the SEC’s SAB 121 rule, Biden later used his veto to veto it. Now that the bill is back in the House of Representatives, about 60 members will need to "defect" and change their votes to oppose Biden to override Biden's veto. However, House leaders believe that is unlikely to happen.
Investors are paying attention to tonight's voting results
Cryptocurrency investors are currently keeping a close eye on the results of tonight’s vote (Taipei time) to see which Democratic lawmakers will double down on their anti-crypto stance.
Cryptocurrency issues have increasingly become a political issue as Trump has turned to supporting cryptocurrencies to attract votes. Although Biden's performance in the first presidential debate was not as good as expected, according to congressional sources, the Democratic Party will not seek to further overturn Biden's veto decision, so as not to further weaken Biden.
SAB 121 has been the focus of criticism from digital asset companies and Republican lawmakers since its announcement. The purpose of this announcement is to "clarify the accounting method for cryptocurrency assets" and instruct banks that hold customers' digital assets on their own balance sheets, which may trigger large capital expenditures.
SAB 121 is “one of the classic examples of over-regulation” by the SEC chairman
Senior Republicans, including Patrick McHenry, said the SEC could circumvent Congress and other regulatory agencies by treating SAB 121 as a "standard" and become a regulation without the need for a traditional rulemaking process such as a public comment period. This approach is controversial.
Patrick McHenry described SAB 121 as "one of the classic cases of over-regulation" by SEC Chairman Gary Gensler. This standard prevents highly regulated financial institutions and companies from acting as custodians of digital assets.
In his letter to Congress, Biden echoed Gensler's statement and urged not to endanger the well-being of investors and consumers.
Ban banks from hosting cryptocurrencies = excessive concentration of risk ≠ protect investors
However, industry participants say that SAB 121 standards may put investors in a dangerous situation, on the grounds that current digital asset custody only relies on a few platforms, so risks appear to be overly concentrated.
For example, Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the United States, revealed that the current asset size of the Bitcoin spot ETF is as much as $36 billion, and Coinbase alone holds 90% of it.
Don’t be afraid of Biden’s threats of suppression! U.S. Senate passes “repeal of SEC cryptocurrency accounting standards”
〈Biden has another big victory in the fight against the currency circle? The U.S. House of Representatives is expected to uphold its rejection of the "repeal of SEC cryptocurrency accounting standards." This article was first published on "Blocker".
