The previous chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) of the United States, Timothy Massad, emphasized the importance of the government’s attention to the stablecoin ecosystem in an interview with CNBC.
On July 24, Massad told a CNBC interviewer that he sees stablecoins as a bridge between the “crypto world and the real world” and that governments shouldn’t see them as a fad that’s about to go away.
The ex-chairman said he is “concerned” that regulators are not properly addressing the risks of stablecoins, rather they are being kept out of the conversation because of the idea that they don’t actually work.
“I sympathize with a lot of people in government saying … we’re not convinced about this use case, we don’t really see what value it has in the real world,” he said. “But sometimes it takes time to actually discover it.
Massad was an an outspoken proponent of cryptocurrency regulation and more cohesive cooperation between the CFTC and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regarding digital assets.
On July 24, the United States Government Accountability Office (GAO), the national watchdog agency of Congress, released a report on the use of blockchain in finance in which it reflected the sentiment for interagency cooperation on crypto-regulations.
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In the same interview with CNBC, he emphasized that stablecoins could have the potential to create faster payment mechanisms in the US and that if the US created a stablecoin, it could lead other countries to do the same.
“I think stablecoin competition could be useful again if we deal with risks that are significant.”
In addition to faster payment systems, he argued that stablecoins are already causing banks to consider their current operating systems and ways to improve them.
Massad has also sued the US in the past for not pouncing on them creation of a central bank digital currency (CBDC) fast enough.
The comments come as US regulators continue to consider regulations for the crypto industry, which include more notes that would influence the issuance of stablecoins and use.
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