CryptoDad

Chapter 10 “CryptoDad”

Sometimes the best journeys are those, that start when we do not plan, continue how we do not expect and are taking us places we do not know.

—Aisha Mirza (writer, DJ, and crisis counselor), as quoted in More Wisdom in Failure by Chimgaemezu Morrison

Kopper Kettle

Tuesday, February 6, 2018, was the date scheduled for a hearing of the US Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs. It was entitled, “Virtual Currencies: The Oversight Role of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission.” SEC Chairman Clayton and I would be the only witnesses.

Senate Banking, as the committee was known, has broad jurisdiction over banking, price controls, deposit insurance, export promotion and controls, monetary policy, financial aid to commerce and industry, and issuance of currency and coinage. Its members included such well-known senators as Richard Shelby of Alabama and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.

The committee was chaired by Republican Mike Crapo of Idaho and its Democratic Ranking Member was Ohio's Sherrod Brown. Brown also served on the CFTC's Senate oversight body, the Agriculture Committee. Unlike the Senate Ag Committee, which held hearings around a long, level table similar to that of a ranch house kitchen, Senate Banking presided from a highly raised rostrum in an august, wood-paneled room two stories in height. The room was designed so that the powerful Senators could look down upon the ...