Key Points
- A landmark Marijuana bill is headed to the US Senate seeking to challenge regulators who order the closure of bank accounts of businesses they don’t like.
- The bill seeks to protect legal businesses from being forced to deal with reduced banking options owing to pressure from regulators.
The Senate Business Committee has approved the start of the voting process for a historic Marijuana bill that seeks to protect legal companies from asset freezes by regulators who might deem their operations ‘not moral.’
A bill that might save crypto?
An October 2 story by CNN indicates that the US Senate Banking Committee has approved a Marijuana bill that seeks to break barriers between financial institutions and Cannabis companies. The bill in question challenges the activities of Regulators who seek to freeze bank accounts of legal companies because their operations might not be legal.
The Secure and Fair Enforcement Regulation (SAFER) Banking Act aims to resolve a longstanding deadlock between regulators and the cannabis industry, which has forced the involved companies only to use cash for operations. This bill had been presented before the committee since 2015, but it’s the first time it has received a green light to head to the Senate Floor for voting.
How does this relate to crypto? If this bill passes, it will be a benchmark in the Wild West of ongoing crypto regulation in the United States. The SEC, DoJ, CFTC, and other authorities and regulators have doubled down on the crypto industry, with some key heads dubbing the industry as risky and based on non-compliance.
Sitting SEC chair, Gary Gensler has been vocal about the crypto industry being highly uncooperative in the regulatory processes that his authority has been trying to spearhead in the industry. However, it is highly noticeable that the US is trailing far behind in crypto regulation. The EU and other countries are already introducing crypto regulatory frameworks.
If this bill passes, it will be a benchmark for companies like Coinbase and Binance that have legal tussles with US regulators to defend their stances that crypto is not a morally legal grey area. However, now only the voting process by the Senators is left to dictate the direction of the bill.