United States Congressman Brad Sherman (D-CA) has called on colleagues to outlaw cryptocurrencies, saying they threaten to disempower American foreign policy and diminish the rule of law.
Crypto-oriented non-profit Coin Center tweeted the remarks of the congressman, a Democratic representative for California's 30th congressional district, on May 9.
In his comments, Rep. Sherman said that lawmakers must act preemptively to impede the threat posed by cryptocurrencies and thus outlaw their purchase by American citizens. Crypto’s threat, he claimed, forebodes no less than a shake-up of America’s geopolitical influence due to its potential diminishing of the power of its sovereign currency:
“An awful lot of our international power stems from the fact that the dollar is the standard unit of international finance and transactions [...] it is the announced purpose of the supporters of cryptocurrencies to take that power away from us.”
To illustrate the dollar’s current hegemony, Sherman noted that in many key global markets such as oil, clearing via the New York Federal Reserve remains critical for major transactions.
The congressman continued to outline the purportedly negative impact of cryptocurrencies should they gain traction as a global unit of value, stating that an extra-national, distributed digital currency would:
“Put us in the position where the significant sanctions we have on Iran, for example, would become irrelevant.”
Sherman concluded by claiming that the end result of cryptocurrencies would be not only to disempower U.S. foreign policy, but also the country’s tax collection and traditional law enforcement — and thus to utterly transform both the domestic and the global status quo.
As reported, Sherman has previously called for a prohibition on U.S. citizens buying or mining cryptocurrencies. He has also remarked of the supporters of initial coin offerings that “charlatans and scammers have always favored decentralized new enterprises.”
In March 2018, he claimed that cryptocurrencies are a crock whose value lies in aiding terrorists and criminals.
Many of Sherman’s fellow lawmakers, however, take a distinctly more positive view of the promise of cryptocurrencies, with Congressman Darren Soto working on the advancement of three interrelated bills involving the promotion of blockchain.