New Hampshire releases blockchain report, calls for robust regulations

New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu has made public the report from a commission he formed in 2022 to explore the pros and cons of virtual currency.

The report was the culmination of the year-long study undertaken by the Governor’s Commission on “Cryptocurrencies and Digital Assets,” offering interesting insights. In the executive summary, the commission submitted that virtual currencies were uncertain and posed significant risks for investors in the industry.

“This report is comprehensive and timely, providing specific recommendations that would establish New Hampshire as a leading jurisdiction for the development of sound and effective applications of blockchain technologies,” Sununu said.

The report identified several trends in the ecosystem, including the rise of blockchain technology as an “important technical innovation with many potentially important applications in our human societies and economies.” It cited the uses of the technology in the fields of decentralized finance (DeFi), non-fungible tokens (NFTs), decentralized applications (DApps), and the metaverse.

Given the pervasiveness of the new technology, the commission recommended that New Hampshire legislators should seize the initiative to establish a regulatory framework to protect investors. The commission noted that applying the recommendations in the report would give New Hampshire a fair chance at becoming an “attractive jurisdiction” for innovators in the virtual currency industry.

“The Commission expressly examined how the current legal infrastructure requires reform to ensure that longstanding rules, including rules designed to protect consumers and investors, may be clearly and effectively applied to applications that use cutting-edge blockchain technology,” Commission Chair Bill Ardinger stated.

Coming in the middle of chaos

The Governor’s Commission on Cryptocurrencies and Digital Assets report is coming on the heels of a major upheaval facing virtual currencies in the United States. FTX’s collapse has thrown the local ecosystem into chaos as federal regulators and state governments rapidly changed their strategies for dealing with the asset class.

In New York, miners are facing a difficult road ahead after Governor Kathy Hochul signed a proposal to impose a two-year moratorium for block reward mining involving non-renewable energy. There is rising concern that other states are merely adopting a wait-and-see strategy that could see them implement a similar ban in their jurisdictions.

The White House issued a comprehensive framework for responsible development of digital assets back in September 2022 on the heels of the President’s Executive Order.

The report recommended regulators like the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to carry out aggressive enforcement procedures against bad actors in the space, among other sweeping recommendations.

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