US regulatory focus on crypto will spike in 2022, says WEF’s Sheila Warren

• China was astatine the forefront of a crackdown connected Bitcoin mining and crypto trading
• Sheila Warren predicts that the US volition instrumentality the pb successful crypto matters successful 2022, pointing to this year’s Capitol Hill hearings involving lawmakers and crypto executives arsenic the harbinger of what's to come.

The caput of data, blockchain and integer assets astatine the World Economic Forum (WEF) Sheila Warren says 2022 could beryllium the twelvemonth that the US becomes the “big elephant successful the room,” with respect to crypto regulation.

In 2021, China has enforced a superior crackdown connected Bitcoin mining and crypto trading, forcing thousands of miners and aggregate crypto providers to question friendlier destinations for their operations. The US emerged arsenic 1 of those places, with miners drawn to locations specified arsenic Texas for the inexpensive and abundant renewable power.

While the US Federal Reserve seat has antecedently said that the US volition not prohibition cryptocurrencies, a telephone besides made by US Securities and Exchanges Commission (SEC) main Gary Gensler, Warren believes caller events connected Capitol Hill could conscionable beryllium the opening of adjacent much hearings and tougher regulatory approaches.

Giving her marketplace prediction for 2022, the Money Reimagined podcast co-host said successful a recent interview that she foresees the US making large moves successful policymaking.

“If I predicted past twelvemonth that China was going to beryllium the large elephant successful the country making immoderate large moves, I deliberation this year, it’s really going to beryllium the US,” she noted.

She acknowledges that existent policymaking is a process that tin instrumentality a precise agelong time, which means 1 cannot conscionable accidental with certainty that a batch of policies volition beryllium enacted successful 2022. However, she believes that the twelvemonth could spot a surge successful hearings and different regulatory activity, with the authorities and regulators taking a person look astatine the crypto industry.

CBDCs, NFTs, and wide crypto adoption

Warren besides talked astir cardinal slope integer currencies (CBDCs) successful the EU and the US, noting that the satellite volition apt keenly ticker China’s absorption connected expanding usage of the integer yuan. In presumption of issuing integer coins, she thinks the EU mightiness conscionable bushed the United States to the decorativeness line.

During the interview, the WEF exec subordinate was besides affirmative astir non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and believes the crypto and blockchain abstraction arsenic a full is acceptable for further organization adoption. 

According to her, adoption crossed companies could positively interaction the occupation market, with crypto’s valuation apt to spike arsenic the labour marketplace moves into the industry.