US Secretary Of State: Crypto Should Be Regulated Like SWIFT Transactions

The US Secretary Of State recently voiced his opinion on cryptocurrency, suggesting regulation of digital currencies in the same way as SWIFT (financial) transactions. Also known as Michael Pompeo, the expert spoke in an interview with CNBC’s Squawk Box show on Tuesday.

During the interview, Pompeo was asked on the best way to regulate Facebook’s Libra or Bitcoin. As the US Secretary Of State said:

“My sense is this: We should use the same framework that we use to regulate all other electronic financial transactions today. That’s essentially what these are. These are monies moving through markets, or in some case dis-intermediated transactions.”

His statement is all over the latest cryptocurrency news. Michael Pompeo is now seen as one of the optimists for cryptocurrencies. As he said, the same rules that apply to transactions “flowing through SWIFT or flowing though our financial institutions ought to apply to those transactions as well.” He also agreed that it will be difficult to establish a regulation like this.

The interview covered a range of issues. From the state-run propaganda farms using Twitter and Facebook to the Hong Kong protests, the Trump adviser and US Secretary of State addressed the use of pseudonymous cryptocurrencies in the funding of terrorism and money laundering.

He also argued that if such private transactions became a norm, it would “decrease the security for the world if that’s the direction we travel.” The US Secretary of State agreed that being able to track the flows of money around the world has helped a lot over the years. As he said:

“This has helped keep the entire world secure and to fight terrorism and other nefarious activity … We need to preserve a financial system, a global financial system, that protects that,” Pompeo said.

Many best cryptocurrency news sites took a new idea from this interview – and showed the US Secretary of State also agrees with the interviewers who joked that all money laundering until now has been conducted with fiat currency.

For those of you who don’t follow our Bitcoin and altcoin news, the regulation of cryptocurrencies in the United States shows that it is legal to use Bitcoin (BTC) in the country – but the payments are subject to taxes and reporting requirements – just like any other cryptocurrency – through ledgers which are used to keep track of the existence of BTC.