Michigan, and America’s economy and national security, are at grave risk due to the incompetent leadership of Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and their Democrat enablers in Congress. Open borders, reckless spending, a feckless foreign policy, and government overregulation caused massive inflation that has negatively impacted every family. Their old and failed big-government solutions have weakened us at home and across the globe.

We need changed leadership in Washington, leadership that embraces new ideas and allows innovation  — always the greatest strength of the American people — to flourish. America’s technological advancements are what keep us in front of the rest of the world; there is nowhere else in the world where the combination of daring ideas, freedom, engineering talent, and economic opportunity exist quite like the United States. The Biden-Harris administration has, instead, waged a one-sided war against America’s innovators, with unelected bureaucrats and regulators literally trying to regulate some sectors out of existence. No sector has felt this onslaught as acutely as has the cryptocurrency, digital assets, and blockchain technology sector.

Crypto is still unfamiliar to many, but its foundation is based on the traditional American values of privacy, liberty, and freedom from big government intrusion. Blockchain technology, the decentralized digital rails upon which cryptocurrency and digital assets ride, makes financial transactions available to any individual without the intervention of traditional banking institutions, which reduces costs and expands financial freedom. Crypto and similar technologies are being embraced by foreign competitors across the globe, and the United States must lead — or we will be left behind, and our economic and national security interests weakened.

For example, China has built trade and military relationships in nations across the world with its Belt and Road Initiative, and is combining that with the expansion of their Digital Yuan. This is a clear effort to cut the dollar, the world’s reserve currency for the last 80 years, out of international trade. China has even recently cut deals with oil-producing nations in the Middle East to begin energy trading in the Yuan instead of in dollars. This threat alone demands action by the United States to reaffirm our leadership position and compete.

A big difference between China and the United States, however, is that America values freedom above all else. As such, China’s Digital Yuan is a centrally-controlled Central Bank Digital Currency, or CBDC – the ultimate tool in financial surveillance. In America, however, we believe in privacy and self-sovereignty — and so we must champion private, open crypto innovation that is decentralized, privacy-preserving, and built by American companies and entrepreneurs, rather than the federal government. The Biden-Harris administration, meanwhile, has been trying to stamp out open crypto, while trying to move forward with an American CBDC surveillance tool.

Liberal fear-mongers and CBDC fans like Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) suggest that open crypto is a source of money laundering and financing terrorism. They are plain and simply wrong on both counts. Over 5% of all financial flows in the traditional banking system can be traced to illicit finance, while less than 1% of crypto flows are. While crypto usage has risen, its use in money laundering has fallen precipitously.

When I was an FBI agent, one of the most difficult tasks was always “following the money.” But with open, permissionless blockchain networks, it’s possible to swiftly trace illicit fund flows back to their source, allowing for law enforcement to step in with a warrant far quicker than with traditional finance.  And as far as funding terrorism, the Israeli government, which is fighting Iranian proxies Hamas and Hezbollah, has shown repeatedly that direct Iranian cash support through illicit oil sales and fake nonprofits is how these terrorist groups are funded, not crypto. 

In law enforcement, it’s difficult to serve a warrant when your target is outside your jurisdiction. Law enforcement in the digital age is no different — in order to ensure these new financial tools remain safe and useful for everyday Americans, we have to ensure that they are built here in the United States, rather than offshore in unregulated territories. There are some regulations in the U.S. that currently exist for crypto, like anti-money laundering rules that are applied to centralized actors like crypto exchanges or custodians — all of these actors have to register with the Financial Crimes Enforcement network, or FinCEN, at Treasury, and screen users who wish to on or off board funds. But other regulations, specifically those around how crypto tokens are classified and traded, and which market regulators should oversee them, currently don’t exist. It is in this gray area that the Biden-Harris regulators have decided that, instead of issuing rulemakings to clarify things, or calling upon Congress to determine jurisdictional breakdown for regulators — they should instead sue crypto companies into the ground. The end result is that crypto companies have no choice but to move offshore for their very survival, and our law enforcement agencies have a much, much harder job of protecting American citizens. This practice must end.

Further, if the American government (whether through inaction or direct antagonism) allows foreign competitors like China to expand their foothold in this emerging industry, China will set the rules on the flow of information and capital investment. The current version of the internet is bifurcated between the open information flow of the West, and the censored, walled garden of the East (where if you search “Tiananmen Square protest”, no results surface). Ensuring that crypto, the next generation of internet information and value flow, is imbued with American values — and payments denominated in American dollars — is paramount. Our national security is directly tied to the strength of our economy, and the dollar maintaining its primacy as the global reserve currency.

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For over 200 years, America has been the global leader in economic innovation, allowing daring entrepreneurs to take risks that lead to ever-growing economic expansion and opportunity. Other nations, including our economic adversaries, are moving ahead of America in creating a regulatory framework for crypto while we fall behind. It’s now time to lead and embrace crypto and blockchain technology, and expand our long-standing economic power, or we risk not only our economy, but also our national security.

When elected to the Senate, I will work with those who share my belief that America must embrace a forward-looking strategy on crypto, pass comprehensive, yet light-touch legislative rules of the road, and reject luddite Senate Democrat demagogues like Elizabeth Warren, who keep their heads firmly stuck in the sand. Our national security, our economic prosperity, and the continuation of the American Dream depends on us.

Mike Rogers is the Trump-endorsed candidate from Michigan for U.S. Senate.