🚀 CFPB Plays Hide and Seek with Crypto: Who’s the Real Boss? 🕵️‍♂️

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In a twist that would make even the most seasoned of Evelyn Waugh’s characters arch an eyebrow, it seems the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is poised to engage in a delightful game of “Who’s Got the Crypto Baton?” as it gently sidesteps into the shadows. Ethan Ostroff, a partner at the illustrious Troutman Pepper Locke law firm, suggests that the CFPB might just be handing off the regulatory relay baton to more eager sprinters such as the SEC and a motley crew of state-level regulators.

“With the current circus in administration,” Ostroff quipped to CryptoMoon, “my bet is on a rather dramatic CFPB retreat, leaving room for other regulators to dazzle us with their crypto policy gymnastics.”

State regulators, armed with the Consumer Financial Protection Act (CFPA), are apparently itching to flex their regulatory muscles, though some duties will stick to the CFPB like a stubborn piece of gum under a desk—thanks to something called “established law.”

Ostroff, with a twinkle in his eye, named the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) and the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation (DFPI) as the likely stars of the state-level crypto regulation show. 🌟

However, lest we forget, the CFPB isn’t being entirely booted off the stage during the Trump administration. It seems there are “statutorily mandated obligations and requirements” that require acts of Congress to change—akin to needing a divine intervention to move a particularly stubborn cat from its favorite sunspot.

Efficiency or Evasion? The Trump Tangle with CFPB

In a plot twist that Evelyn Waugh himself might chuckle at, the Trump administration, under the guise of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)—a name that would surely amuse the satirist—targeted the CFPB. The aim? To slash government spending and tackle the federal debt, a task as Herculean as trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.

Russell Vought, the new ringmaster of the CFPB, wasted no time in announcing funding cuts and scaling back operations, a move that had all the subtlety of a bull in a china shop.

Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, a co-founder of the CFPB, was less than amused by Elon Musk’s alleged dismantling of her brainchild, likening him to a “bank robber.” She argued that the real motive behind the CFPB’s apparent dismantling was to undo consumer protection rules and seize control of the financial system—a plot twist worthy of a Waugh novel.

In a candid chat with Mother Jones, Warren emphasized that only Congress, not the Executive Branch, holds the keys to fully dismantle the CFPB. Perhaps a reminder that in the grand chess game of government, even kings have their moves limited.

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2025-04-06 20:28