Sen. Pat Toomey on Cryptocurrency and FTX’s Collapse

Former Sen. Pat Toomey’s time in Congress, which began in 1999 after he won a House seat in eastern Pennsylvania, officially ended on January 3 when the new Senate session began.

Toomey was described in a 2004 New Yorker profile as “a conservative Republican of rigorous doctrinal purity: anti-abortion, anti-taxes, anti-spending (except for defense); a fiscal hawk, appalled by big deficits, a crusader for school choice, tort reform, Social Security privatization, and a smaller federal government.” He’s still that guy, but the Republican Party has changed—so Toomey declined to run for reelection this year.

Toomey was one of a handful of senators to take an informed interest in the issues around cryptocurrency. As he prepared to exit office in December, Toomey sat down with Reason‘s Eric Boehm to discuss the topic.

Q: Some of your colleagues have called for new regulations on cryptocurrencies after the collapse of the FTX trading platform, but you disagree. Why?

A: We owe it to each customer to get to the bottom of the FTX implosion, and any violations of the law should be aggressively prosecuted. The Department of Justice and other enforcement agencies should expeditiously investigate the unseemly relationship between a company that was effectively a hedge fund, and an exchange entrusted with customer funds. While all the facts have not yet come to light, we’ve clearly witnessed wrongdoing that is almost certainly illegal.

B