Another crypto-skeptic United States senator is on the loose, with Democrat Jon Tester boldly stating that he sees “no reason why” crypto should exist.
Tester is the senior senator of Montana and has held a seat there since 2007. He also serves on the Senate Banking Committee, which is one of the key players involved in the ongoing debate over U.S. crypto regulation.
During a Dec. 11 appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press, Tester argued that as crypto has no real value at all, the sector shouldn’t be regulated, as that would give it legitimacy.
“It’s not been able to pass the smell test for me. I have not been able to find anybody who’s been able to explain to me what’s there other than synthetics […] which means nothing,” he said, adding that:
“The problem is if we regulate it, and I pointed this out to some of the regulators here a week or two ago, if we regulated it, it may give it the ability of people to think it’s real.”
In line with such thinking, Tester then went on to state that he sees “no reason why this stuff should exist” at all.
The crypto community wasn’t shy about slamming the senator’s anti-crypto remarks and his self-admitted lack of crypto knowledge, with user @BS0064 sayingthat it’s “always good to see people who have no idea what they’re talking about to express really strong opinions on the matter.”
Also, @blocknonprofit argued, “it is real… imagine all those cryptos are just tech stocks not traded on traditional exchanges used today.”
Tester’s most-recent testy comments come just a couple of weeks after he told media startup Semafor that the sector was “all bullshit” and that he can’t “figure out what supports it.”
Semafor’s Dec. 1 article was also littered with negative crypto stances from a bunch of Democrat senators, with crypto-hater Elizabeth Warren going in hard by noting: “finally, there are more people blowing the bullshit whistle.”
Bernie Sanders was at least more diplomatic, stating that he’s “not a big fan” of crypto.
Related: Senate Banking Committee Democrats warn SoFi about meeting its compliance deadline
Commenting on the article via Twitter, Semafor Washington editor Jordan Weissmann suggested that since the FTX debacle went down, “Dems suddenly feel free to say what they really think about the crypto industry.”
After FTX, it seems Dems suddenly feel free to say what they really think about the crypto industry.
Jon Tester told our reporter yesterday that he thinks the entire thing is “bullshit.” Warren, Brown, and Sanders also had words. https://t.co/LzbCM9SkJD
— Jordan Weissmann (@JHWeissmann) December 1, 2022