On the Money – Washington grapples with regulating crypto

Happy Tuesday and welcome to On The Money, your nightly guide to everything affecting your bills, bank account and bottom line. Subscribe here: digital-stage.thehill.com/newsletter-signup.

Today’s Big Deal: Lawmakers and federal agencies are focused on how to regulate the cryptocurrency industry. We’ll also look at rising home prices and increased interest in Congress in strengthening cybersecurity.

For The Hill, I’m Naomi Jagoda. Write me at njagoda@digital-stage.thehill.com or @NJagoda. You can reach my colleagues on the Finance team Sylvan Lane at slane@digital-stage.thehill.com or @SylvanLane and Aris Folley at afolley@digital-stage.thehill.com or @ArisFolley.

Let’s get to it.

Washington works to expand crypto oversight

The cryptocurrency explosion has forced Washington to adapt federal financial rules to a quickly growing and changing industry.

Americans have poured billions of dollars into cryptocurrencies and a wide array of blockchain-based financial platforms over the past year as the pandemic triggered an investment boom.

While the crypto market has picked up steam steadily over the past decade, a surge of interest in the space and the rapid rise of decentralized financial networks has drawn fresh attention from regulators and lawmakers:

• The Securities and Exchange Commission, Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the Treasury Department and state money transmission licensers all share overlapping jurisdiction over parts of the crypto industry, which often leaves firms unsure about their regulatory obligations.

• The SEC and CFTC have focused primarily on crypto firms and offerings that clearly violate general investor protection and anti-fraud laws.

• Democratic lawmakers and regulators in both parties have also expressed particular concerns with “stablecoins,” tokens tied to cash or other safer assets held by the coin’s issuer.

Read more from Sylvan here.

LEADING THE DAY

Home prices in the U.S. rose by 18.4 percent on a year-over-year basis in October, according to the data from the S&P Dow Jones CoreLogic Case-Shiller 20-City Composite Home Price NSA Index released on Tuesday.

This growth in home prices marked a slight drop from the 19.1 percent increase that was reported in September.

• Phoenix, Tampa and Miami saw the highest year-over-year increase in October among the 20 cities included in the index, with all three cities seeing growth of more than 25 percent.

• Chicago, Washington, D.C, and Minneapolis saw the lowest year-over-year change of the cities on the list, with increases of just 11 to 12 percent.

Read more from The Hill’s Joseph Choi here.

CYBER IN THE SPOTLIGHT

Congress zooms in on cybersecurity after banner year of attacks

The past 12 months stand as a banner year in the severity of cyberattacks that wreaked havoc on organizations large and small. 

But in the wake of the chaos, a silver lining has emerged around a never before seen level of bipartisan support and genuine interest on Capitol Hill for strengthening the nation’s cybersecurity. 

“Everybody’s consciousness had been raised with respect to threats in cybersecurity, everything from the ransomware attacks, to other different types of cyber intrusions which have taken place,” Rep. Jim Langevin (D-R.I.), chair of the House Armed Services’s cybersecurity subcommittee, told The Hill earlier this month. “We have more awareness now, more members are paying attention to it than ever before.

Read more from The Hill’s Maggie Miller here.

Good to Know 

The Professional Golfers’ Association of America and the Trump Organization on Tuesday announced they had reached a settlement over the golf group’s decision to pull a major tournament from Trump’s Bedminster, N.J., golf course following the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

Here’s what else have our eye on:

• The Wall Street Journal is reporting that President Biden is considering Sarah Bloom Raskin, a former Federal Reserve Governor and Treasury Department official, to be the Fed’s vice chair of supervision.

• Riot Games will pay $100 million to settle a discrimination and harassment case brought by more than 2,000 women employees, California’s civil rights agency announced.

• A federal appeals court on Monday upheld Google’s settlement in a class action case over allegations that it collected Wi-Fi data illegally with its Street View program.

That’s it for today. Thanks for reading and check out The Hill’s Finance page for the latest news and coverage. We’ll see you tomorrow.