Crypto regulations: President Biden imposes restrictions on his DirCom

The US government has long been singled out for its passivity towards the crypto sector. Apparently, he intends to rectify the situation to some extent. This, even if a few teeth grind.

More links between the DirCom and its former crypto partners!

Ben LaBolt, the White House communications manager, should be banned from collaborating with former crypto firms. This is what emerges frominformation disclosed this Sunday April 23. The measure thus prevents LaBolt from “participate in legal cases, investigations or contracts involving cryptos or technology companies that he has previously represented”.

This restriction, emanating from the tenant of the Oval Office, therefore concerns all the firms for which LaBolt has worked. These include the UniSwap platform and the venture capital firm Andressen Horowitz, a partner of the Coinbase exchange.

An official financial disclosure sheet indicates that the latter are in fact former clients of Bully Pulpit Interactive (BPI). This is a company in which the DirCom held interests before his appointment to the White House.

According to the same source, UniSwap and Andressen Horowitz are not the only companies with which Ben LaBolt would maintain business relations. They would, in fact, be part of a list of 23 clients who paid more than $5,000 in fees to BPI. This, over a year.

An ethical measure?

On the surface, the new constraints linked to these business partnerships are intriguing in themselves. However, interpreted through the prism of current debates around crypto regulation, we understand their relevance.

Indeed, we imagine that President Biden wants, through them, to limit the risk of collusion. The measure is actually related “to the rules of ethics followed by other senior White House officials”.

Nevertheless, these limitations come in a context where the government’s passivity regarding the regulation of cryptos was criticized. Recently, however, the Biden administration has shown that it is not indifferent to it. In March, in particular, the American leader formalized a decree describing the United States’ policy on crypto.

For Cynthia Loomis, the Republican senator from Wyoming, reducing the field of action of the DirCom would contribute to reinforcing this feeling. “It’s great to see the Biden administration’s growing interest in digital assets“, she said.

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