Uniswap CEO warns US President to reverse course on crypto policies

(Coin Telegraph)-15/05/2024

Hayden Adams, the founder and CEO of decentralized exchange Uniswap, called on United States President Joe Biden to consider how voters think about crypto when they enter ballot boxes in November.

In a May 12 X post, Adams claimed there was “not much time” for President Biden to change the perception many crypto-focused voters had of his administration’s policies on digital assets. According to the Uniswap CEO, the U.S. President was making a “miscalculation” of assuming crypto would be irrelevant in the 2024 elections and allowing Senator Elizabeth Warren and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to “wage total war” on the technology.

“Republicans smell blood in the water and are turning hard towards crypto,” said Adams. “Not much time for Biden to save it. Anyone close to him or [Democratic] leadership should be expressing how serious this is and pushing for immediate reversal on his approach to crypto (public support/plan and reigning in sec + warren).”

In November, U.S. voters will choose whether to elect President Biden to a second term. Since taking office in 2021, he signed one of the first executive orders to establish a regulatory framework for digital assets and nominated Gary Gensler as the SEC Chair. 

Under Gensler, the SEC has ramped up enforcement actions against crypto firms offering services or products to U.S. residents, resulting in many criticizing the commission for a seemingly inconsistent approach to digital assets. The regulator has civil cases pending against Kraken, Coinbase, Ripple and Binance.

On May 8, a majority of members of the U.S. House of Representatives voted in favor of a resolution that would overturn an SEC rule placing restrictions on banks holding customers’ crypto. Before the vote, President Biden said he intended to veto the resolution, letting the SEC’s Special Accounting Bulletin 121 stay in place.

With fewer than six months until U.S. Election Day, many in and out of the crypto space have called out the Biden administration for its policies on digital assets — some as a warning like Adams, others as a criticism. Members of Congress are also moving forward with legislation to clarify the roles the SEC and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) would play in regulating crypto.