Elizabeth Warren and Ron Wyden, both of the United States Senate, have submitted a request to the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) requesting that auditors be held accountable for failing cryptocurrency projects.
Recently, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), a non-profit organization that oversees the audits of public companies and other issuers, stated that proof-of-reserves (POR) are not the same as audits and are not conducted in accordance with the auditing standards established by the PCAOB. POR is a technology that has gained widespread adoption across cryptocurrency exchanges as a way to verify the accessibility of users’ cash. Yet, Senator Elizabeth Warren has called for a more stringent regulation, stating, “But let’s be clear: there’s more PCAOB needs to do so consumers aren’t left holding the bag when dodgy crypto firms collapse.”
Her statement was met with opposition by members of the cryptocurrency community, many of whom brought attention to the ongoing failure of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), a bank that was insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.
On the other hand, due to the fact that SVB was solely responsible for the price volatility of the Circle-issued USD Coin token, crypto Twitter questioned Warren’s position regarding the failure of a financial institution that was unrelated to cryptocurrencies.
Ari Paul, the founder of the blockchain investment firm Blocktower Capital, provided a response to Sen. Elizabeth Warren by highlighting how SVB is forcing cryptocurrency startups into bankruptcy. He stated, “The far larger non-crypto bank SVB just put a lot of decent companies into bankruptcy. Put an end to the pretense that expanding your empire helps others… This simply keeps providing unneeded losses to retail and institutional depositors alike.
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, took to Twitter to mark the occasion by posting a meme that illustrated the conundrum that faces investors when deciding whether or not to entrust their money to traditional banks or crypto firms.
