United States Senator Bill Hagerty, a member of the Senate Banking Committee, introduced legislation seeking a safe harbor for cryptocurrency exchanges from “certain” Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) enforcement actions.
The Digital Trading Clarity Act of 2022,
Running parallel to the regulatory reforms recommended by the US senators, the federal government amped up efforts to study the feasibility of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) in the American market.
Under Biden’s directive, the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) analyzed 18 CBDC design choices — outlining various pros and cons of each system:
“It is possible that the technology underpinning a permissionless approach will improve significantly over time, which might make it more suitable to be used in a CBDC system.”
The technical evaluation for a U.S. CBDC system highlighted the department’s inclination toward an off-ledger, hardware-protected system.