'Doctor Doom' vs Crypto: Here's What to Expect in Congress Today

Famed economist Nouriel Roubini plans to strike a fiery tone on cryptocurrency and blockchain before a group of U.S. senators on Thursday. Roubini will testify before the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs alongside Coin Center director of research Peter Van Valkenburgh in a hearing entitled “Exploring the Cryptocurrency and Blockchain Ecosystem.”

In prepared remarks published Wednesday, Roubini, who was given the nickname “Dr. Doom” for his predictions about the 2008 financial crisis, plans to come out swinging, arguing cryptocurrencies are not a viable unit of account, means of payment or store of value. Among the arguments: Roubini contends that “wealth in crypto-land is more concentrated than in North Korea”.

Van Valkenburgh’s testimony pushes back against some of the hype surrounding the space as well, noting that blockchain “is not” a “solution to any number of social, economic, organizational or cybersecurity problems.” It even goes as far as to say that the phrase “‘blockchain technology’ is a vague and undefined buzzword.”

The Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee has discussed the cryptocurrency space before. Earlier this year, the committee saw U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chair Jay Clayton and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) chair J. Christopher Giancarlo testify on what their agencies saw as pressing needs for regulating the space. While Clayton said at the time that the securities regulator may ask for legislation approving additional oversight on the space, neither the request nor any such legislation has materialized to date. In fact, while there are a number of bills sitting before the Senate and the House of Representatives, few have been signed into law so far.