Tuesday's crypto hearing before the U.s. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs also included a phone call for stricter regulations on cryptocurrency miners.

Addressing the committee, professor Angela Walch claimed that miners held "meaningful power" over the way blockchain networks operate. Co-ordinate to Walch, miners can exploit their office of transaction ordering, which could become a "major upshot" for cryptocurrencies, every bit reported by Law360.

In stressing the betoken, professor Walch likened the miner extractable value paradigm — where miners earn more profits from ordering transactions in a certain fashion — as being akin to a "bribe." As such, Walch called for "greater scrutiny" on the activities of miners, given their role every bit "intermediaries" in the multi-billion-dollar crypto ecosystem.

Coin Center executive managing director Jerry Brito countered Walch's characterization of crypto miners as intermediaries, instead likening their office to that of internet service providers. Brito argued for miners to be treated like ISPs without the need for burdensome regulations like money transmission laws.

Brito highlighted places such as New York where the state's stringent Bitlicense does not include crypto miners, as they are non accounted "financial intermediaries."

Walch was not the only 1 to cast a seemingly jaundiced glance at crypto miners. Senator Elizabeth Warren used terms such as "shadowy" and "faceless" to describe software developers and miners.

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With the U.S. identified as a likely destination for miners relocating out of Cathay due to the latter's crypto mining crackdown, the crypto mining space in the U.S. may exist in for more than serious scrutiny.

Most of the regulatory talk regarding U.S. miners has been about ecology concerns, with some North American mining firms expressing their commitment to environmentally sustainable operations.