During a panel at Collision 2023 in Toronto, Anthony Scaramucci, founder of Skybridge Capital and former White House communications director, stated that disgraced crypto executive Sam Bankman-Fried “really hurt the industry in the United States from a regulatory perspective.” Scaramucci continued:
“He embarrassed the politicians; he gave a lot of money to them. They spent a lot of time with him, Gary Gensler spent a lot of time with him. And then they had this huge situation that happened. And that was very embarrassing. And so now the pendulum has swung too far to over-regulation in this ridiculous prosecutorial oversight.”
When asked for his opinion concerning the crypto regulatory environment in Canada compared to the U.S., Scaramucci stated that “Canada actually learned from the United States and set it up the way we used to do things in the United States.” He explained:
“They went to the industry. They said, ‘Okay, how do we fairly regulate the industry? How do we protect ourselves from bad actors?’ Most of the industry players know one another, and then […] they work alongside their legislators to come up with guidelines.”
“We’re watching the Canadian crypto digital asset space thrive,” Scaramucci continued. For the politician and business magnate, Scaramucci has his eyes set on Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, who happens to be a Canadian national, in terms of leading the future of cryptocurrency exchanges in the wake of FTX’s collapse:
“I’m gonna give him an A on execution and growing Binance. It’s 65ish percent of the overall market. So I’ll give him an A on that. He probably gets a C+ or B on transparency around it. Maybe in the beginning, they had some things that they did there that were regrettable. But it’s just the SEC [Securities and Exchange Commission] that is suing them; we have yet to see anything criminal.”
For closing statements, Scaramucci stated that while CZ will continue to get “a lot of flaming arrows,” he will continue to be the “most influential person” in crypto. “He does actually have the largest platform, and it’s that one that can gain mass adoption, while still being a legitimate source where they’re gonna continue to operate in all major jurisdictions in the world,” said Scaramucci.
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