CryptoDad

Chapter 8Go Time

Nothing is, as it was.

Each day is a clean slate. You have to create

A whole new path instead, Find another gear;

Or a different vehicle To get there. Many roads lie ahead, Limited only by imagination

And determination. Keep moving, You'll find another way.

—Carolyn Brunelle (poet and painter), “Shifting Gears”

Taking Action

My beloved mentor, Henry Galant, professor of government at Skidmore College, was fond of the aphorism, “To govern is to choose.” It was a bon mot of Galant's own mentor, Pierre Mendès-France.¹ It meant that good government means making decisions, even hard ones.

As chairman of the agency, I had the authority and the duty to oversee the staff's response to the self-certifications of Bitcoin futures. I was increasingly coming to the view that I would not seek ways to block them. Instead, I was inclined to let them proceed and, in so doing, establish the world's first regulated market in which investors could conduct crypto price discovery, transact in transparent and orderly markets, and establish fair market value.

Nevertheless, with the support of the new crypto task force, Amir Zaidi and his team in the Division of Market Oversight were putting the self-certifications through a process of unprecedented scrutiny he called “heightened review.” The futures exchanges were by and large cooperating, and we were wresting valuable concessions. We'd be obtaining trading data that would enable us to better protect consumers and Bitcoin market ...