Ex-CFTC Chair Chris Giancarlo Says CLARITY Act's Collapse Is No Loss

Chris Giancarlo, who once ran the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission, isn't shedding a tear over the CLARITY Act's defeat in Congress. In a recent interview, he said he's glad it failed: “I'm quite satisfied that Clarity didn't pass. We're going to be just fine.” He doesn't expect the bill to come back anytime soon.

The bill spent its final six months dying a slow death, according to Giancarlo. It dragged on and tried to satisfy every interest group, stacking up extra provisions until it became “unloved by everybody.”

Giancarlo's bigger argument: America rarely writes tech laws before the tech shows up. There was no founding law for the internet, big data or artificial intelligence, he said, and all three still grew into something remarkable. Writing rules first is “sort of a European thing,” he added, because it forces innovators to build around government demands instead of customer needs. With the SEC and CFTC now writing rules under existing authority, he says the industry's real needs are being handled. The push for legislation, in his view, was mainly about making sure the hostility of the Biden years never returns.

Asked whether President Donald Trump's crypto interests hurt the bill, Giancarlo answered: “I think that's true.” He called the Trump coin and the Melania coin “ill-advised” and said the issue turned into “a political football.” Giancarlo noted that when he led the CFTC, no rule barred him from owning Bitcoin, but he chose not to hold any while writing crypto rules. “Statesmen should self-impose some restrictions,” he said.

Even so, Giancarlo says Trump has been a net positive for crypto, pointing to his appointments of crypto-friendly regulators. He praised Selig, who once worked for him, saying Selig is doing “everything he can” with the powers Congress granted.

On the global stage, Giancarlo declared the United States is “winning the crypto race right now.” He described the United Arab Emirates as strong but regional, and said the US has the world's biggest financial market and the deepest pool of tech talent. He also knocked Senator Elizabeth Warren and others for wanting people to stick with “paper checks and branch banks,” arguing younger generations raised online won't accept an analog financial system.