Vivek Ramaswamy vows to rescind most federal cryptocurrency regulations and drastically reduce headcount at the Securities and Exchange Commission if he is elected president.
Ramaswamy's proposal, the first crypto plan released by a Republican presidential campaign, calls for a 75% reduction of the federal workforce, including the SEC, and says he would make the deregulation of financial and investment rules a priority.
The SEC job cuts would not only affect roles overseeing crypto, but vastly reduce the agency's ability to regulate financial markets more broadly.
Ramaswamy is chairman and co-founder of Strive Asset Management and 2024 Republican presidential candidate.
Since the inception of crypto, the shadow government in the administrative state in Washington, DC, and its cronies on Wall Street have tried to quash its rise," Ramaswamy said in a statement Thursday. "That ends on my watch."
His call to deregulate the crypto industry is a stance that puts him largely out of step with both fellow Republicans and Democrats, especially in the aftermath of the implosion of the crypto empire FTX, which led to the fraud conviction of the organization's founder, Sam Bankman-Fried. Members of both political parties have called for more oversight of the industry to protect consumers.
