SHORT ANALYSIS ON THE Executive Order on Ensuring Responsible Development of Digital Assets.
Few Thoughts on the Review of Biden’s Executive Order on Digital Asset, with particular regards to the valuation of Payward, Inc. (Kraken) and Ripple, Inc.
The Executive Order directs various federal agencies to study benefits and risks of digital assets to the U.S. economy/global competitiveness and provide legislative recommendations. This is in line with our expectation that the U.S. wants to support U.S. companies that give the country a competitive advantage globally.
It acknowledges that crypto, tokenization, blockchain, NFTs, smart contracts, are powering a more viable economic structure with individual autonomy. The Executive Order points towards the U.S. developing a strategy to foster this innovation. This is supportive for the entire digital assets, web3, blockchain universe and above all Kraken.
The U.S. has a national interest in fostering digital asset innovation. The rest of the Executive Order focuses on consumer protection, systemic risks, global competitiveness, international standards, and placing guardrails on code to make sure its resilient.
The Executive Order places the “highest urgency” on the agencies to study CBDCs.
The Executive Order doesn’t mention decentralization. This is quite unfortunate.
The Executive Order doesn’t ask the SEC to weigh in. SEC Chair Gensler has spent the past year intimidating crypto innovators and entrepreneurs with his unproductive regulation by public statement and enforcement action. His input is not critical, and it looks like the SEC will have less power not more going forward. This is good news for Ripple.
Given this Administration’s regulatory posture toward the crypto community, we have no reason to assume that the directives in the Executive Order will yield results that appropriately acknowledge the importance of leading with digital asset policies that prioritize open, permission-less, & private tech. This Executive Order is not definitive news.
Conclusion: The Executive Order contains some positive news for the American crypto community, but it fails to provide push to the U.S. maintaining technological and economic leadership on the global stage.
