US officials to investigate digital currencies’ oversight

The New York Times reports that American officials at the state and federal levels are concerned about whether digital currencies can police themselves and have begun “broad investigations.”

Already, the Senate homeland security committee has sent out a written query asking financial regulators and heads of law enforcement what threats and risks “virtual currency” poses. “This is something … that demands a whole government response,” an anonymous source close to the inquiry is quoted as saying.

This all coincides with a subpoena from the State of New York’s Superintendent of Financial Services Benjamin M. Lawsky, which was sent to 22 Bitcoin businesses in the state. Lawsky seeks clarity in the businesses’ inner workings as it pertains to digital currencies.

Among those businesses subpoenaed includes Coinsetter, a trading platform that raised $500,000 in investment this past April. Coinsetter’s CEO Jaron Lukasiewicz told the Forex Magnates blog that Bitcoin companies could not wait for regulators totell them what to do and have instead begun trying to regulate themselves.

After all, most businesses in the space are legitimate — just as in hard currency economies — and shouldn’t be hamstrung because governments have yet to catch up to new technologies.