US President, Joe Biden has reportedly chosen Rostin Behnam as the regulatory chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), according to Bloomberg. CFTC is the supervisor of the majority of the $582 trillion global derivatives market, including cryptocurrency trading.

Behnam’s eco-conscious approach

White House’s Nomination of Behnam is unsurprising however, the official announcement is still several weeks away. Behnam’s nomination as the lead regulator for the CFTC speculates an eco-conscious shift in the derivatives, as well as crypto markets in the US. Unlike Trump’s business-friendly policies, a democratic approach under Behnam’s administration could mean a crackdown on derivatives and crypto trading that consume unsustainable resources of energy.

Behnam is currently serving as the temporary Acting Chairman of the Wall Street Regulator. He gained media attention last year upon his sponsorship of an industry group report against the US government, demanding institutions to pay their respective greenhouse gas emission. Additionally, this March, Behnam launched CFTC plans to set up a climate-change division that would specifically evaluate the role of derivatives in reducing carbon emissions.

Behnam could crackdown or build up the US crypto market

The CFTC also holds control of certain parts of the cryptocurrency sector. A few years back, the CFTC announced Bitcoin as a commodity under the US Commodity Exchange Act, and CME Group Inc., which it regulates, lists futures contracts tied to the token.

Behnam’s regulatory stances towards sustainable energy consumption could either break down or build up the crypto industry. While Bitcoin Mining Council’s (BMC) July data revealed an approximately 56% hike in sustainable energy consumption by the global Bitcoin mining industry; the controversial crypto clause of the US infrastructure Bill has ignored these discoveries.

The bipartisan $1.2 trillion worth, US infrastructure bill plans to radically increase crypto tax and raise nearly $28 billion from cryptocurrency tax enforcement measures. Additionally, the tax regulations will also allow the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to demand all digital asset subsidiaries to report tax liabilities on crypto transactions.

About Author

Journalism & Mass Comm. ‘21 graduate, Palak is a GenZ journalist with background in Lifestyle journalism & PR. At CoinGape, Palak is a junior crypto journalist preparing for Web 3.0

People work hard for money and naturally, they want to be able to spend that money. With the spread of cryptocurrencies it has become easier to transact with them. More and more merchants have started to accept them. Cross-border transactions are also cheaper when executed with cryptocurrencies. Yet, they are far from being mass-adopted, the price volatility and lack of scalability are two major technical hurdles on the way. 

Even with cross-border transactions, PayPal still dominates the market. Jax.Network is a new protocol anchored to Bitcoin and claims to fix these two issues. Let’s compare it with PayPal and see who has the competitive advantage. 

PayPal vs Jax.Network: the comparative analysis of their features

The distinctions between PayPal and Jax.Network, as payment processors, are shown in this table:

Benefits & disadvantages

Multiple conclusions can be derived from the above table about the advantages and disadvantages of Jax.Network and PayPal. Nothing is perfect and both can be equally important for many people.

• PayPal takes up to 2.9% transaction fees when you are transferring money within a country. If a person is in another country, you will have to pay 4.4% fees, which is even higher. Jax.Network, however, has a negligible amount of fee for initiating transactions.
• In PayPal transactions, the government and the banks will moderate and check every transaction that occurs. In the case of Jax.Network, there is no intermediary, and a user can transfer the funds in their account at their discretion. 
• PayPal supports fiat currency whose supply is regulated by the government itself. The supply of crypto is regulated at the protocol level, and there is often a supply cap for most cryptocurrencies. However, JAX coins don’t have a cap, but mining is limited only when there is a demand for transactions through a market-driven approach. In doing so, JAX is a stablecoin fitted for day-to-day payments. 

What’s better

There are multiple differences between PayPal and Jax.Network. On one hand, if you want to transact money to some merchants or eCommerce platforms using the money in your bank, PayPal is more convenient. On the other hand, if you are comfortable with crypto and want a platform wherein you don’t have to continuously worry about high fees, intermediaries, etc, then definitely Jax.Network can be the one for you.