U.S. regulatory turf wars and a spot Bitcoin ETF are on their way in 2022
Perianne Boring of the Chamber of Digital Commerce sees agencies elbowing each other to oversee the crypto industry while investors start to pay big taxes.
Welcome to Forkast Forecasts 2022. In this series, leaders, innovators and visionaries in blockchain-related fields tell Forkast.News their predictions for the year ahead.
Perianne Boring
Perianne Boring is founder and president of the Chamber of Digital Commerce, the trade association representing the blockchain industry. She was named one of America’s Top 50 Women in Tech by Forbes, and one of the 10 Most Influential People in Blockchain by CoinDesk. Prior to forming the chamber, Boring was a television host and anchor of an international finance program that aired in more than 100 countries to over 650 million viewers.
Predictions for 2022
Sharing the wealth
“We’re going to see at least one major crypto trading platform going public following Coinbase. There may be more than that.”
Regulatory turf wars
“From the regulatory side here in the U.S. we’re going to see a lot of activity from the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) that is going to impact how companies can operate in this space under the SEC’s jurisdiction or not. … There’s still a number of vacancies across the federal government, and once you start seeing more people confirmed, particularly in those chair roles, you will start seeing other agencies start to assert their jurisdiction over the digital assets space.”
“We’re going to see more turf wars across the federal government and the agencies that I would look out for would be the SEC with Chairman (Gary) Gensler, who has really been out front and center, continuing to try to expand the SEC jurisdiction. You’ll start seeing some conversations from the CFPB (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau) and the CFTC (Commodity Futures Trading Commission). And then you’ll have very similar-type conversations with the states as well.”
Spot the future
“Another thing we will see next year is a spot Bitcoin ETF for U.S. investors. There may be some creative ways that companies go about getting a spot Bitcoin ETF to U.S. people. It may not be actually issued on a U.S. regulated exchange, but we will see that tool finally come to the markets for investors.”
Cashing in
“As you’re seeing more adoption of digital assets globally, you’re going to start seeing those early investors realize more gains. It’s estimated today that 20% of first time homebuyers are using profits from crypto investments for their down payments. So we’re going to continue to see more early investors taking gains and buying real estate. We’ll see more growth in the real estate sector that’s fueled by cryptocurrencies. And then that also leads to a conversation about tax and more tax revenue as more people are selling their crypto and taking gains.”
“In 2017 and the 2017 tax year, there was $100 billion’ worth of taxes paid in capital gains and 25% of that, or $25 billion dollars of cap gains paid in [2017] came from crypto. There’s about $1 trillion of unrealized crypto gains today, and that would be about another $200 billion of potential revenue for the IRS. So we’re going to see a very successful and thriving crypto ecosystem in the U.S., and that’s going to fuel a huge amount of the IRS revenue going into next year, and it will continue to trend in that direction as this industry continues to grow and expand.”