Is it okay for hackers to steal money from Cryptocurrencies and not going to get caught? Do we need to add classes about Cryptocurrencies to colleges to prevent more money being stolen? In an article entitled “Should Congress create a Crypto-Cop?” Perhaps a new agency is needed. Hackers are still out there and trying to hack to new walls.

You know, whenever we talk about games, there are hackers. I still remember just about one year ago. I was a gamer at the time, everyday I would play five matches before I even finish my homework. Everytime that I play, there would be at least one hacker in two out of five matches that I played.

Oh, wait a second, I was wrong. To be honest with you, there would be a hacker in every single match that I played. By the time I realized what hackers are, they have stolen a lot of money from me through trading in-game items called “skins”. When there are hackers in my game, I would just ignore them. However, when it comes to hackers stealing money I do not joke around, especially cryptocurrencies.

Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and others have rose up in recent years. It was said to be the new currency that people will use in the future, maybe sooner. To be honest with you, I did not know about online currency until grade seven, I am now eighth grade. After seeing online currency rises up, I started to wonder why it is that popular. People started to mine coins and make videos to show it online. I thought the rise of cryptocurrencies was going to be normal and soon we will use it. However, hackers always try to find the newest and most effective way to break into the cryptocurrency wall. As a result, tokens worth millions of dollars have been stolen from variety online currency. Many of them reported. For instance, this Italian cryptocurrency exchange called BitGrail reported on Saturday that “tokens called Nano worth approximately $170 million had gone missing in unauthorized transactions”(Henning) . As well as an exchange in Japan called Coincheck reported in January that hackers had stolen $530 million from the accounts of cryptocurrency investors (Henning). Until today, they still did not catch those hackers

Clayton highlighted “the risks posed by cryptocurrency trading platforms that call themselves exchanges, which gives the impression that they are regulated like the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq” (Clayton). However, investors using such platforms “do not receive many of the market protections that they would when transacting through broker-dealers on registered exchanges”. Instead, cryptocurrency exchanges are considered “money transmission businesses”, they provide little protection to those who use their services (Henning). Not every customer get the protection they needed for trading or using these cryptocurrencies. There is a protection system though. It is just not strong enough to regulate the use of cryptocurrencies.

Colleges like Duke and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are adding classes to provide the basic of these virtual currencies to eager students. A variety of schools have added or are rushing to add classes about Bitcoin and the technology that it introduced, also known as the blockchain (Henning). “Graduate-level classes at Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, Duke, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Maryland, among other places, illustrate the fascination with the technology across several academic fields, and the assumption that it will outlast the current speculative price bubble” (Popper). They also taught about these cryptocurrencies for college students to prevent hackers from stealing more money.

One of the reasons is that there are not many people that are powerful enough to control the whole cryptocurrency transaction system. At a recent hearing of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, Jay Clayton, the chairman of the S.E.C., and J. Christopher Giancarlo, the chairman of the C.F.T.C., spoke about their limited power to regulate the use of cryptocurrencies. Investors need protection. Virtual currencies reports that they have seen thieves from customers account  (Henning). The people you are in charge of these cryptocurrencies spoke about their limited power, which means that there is no one strong enough to stop these actions. They cannot catch these hackers and cannot reverse the transaction.

Some people might say that to create a crypto cop, it would take a lot of time and effort, as well as money to create a fully working crypto-cop. However, at a recent hearing, Clayton and Giancarlo, both leaders suggested that they would support the Congress in creating the Agency. However it still requires an act of Congress, as well as close involvement with the relevant agencies. Clayton commented in his written remarks that he is open to working with U.S. lawmakers, in addition to state regulators, on the question of new rules for trading sites. “As Chairman Giancarlo and I stated recently, we are open to exploring with Congress,... We also are supportive of regulatory and policy efforts to bring clarity and fairness to this space” (Higgins). Which means that speaking of creating a new crypto agency will take time to do, it depends on Congress whether they will decide to create it or not.

I remembered the first time I actually lost my own money, I was so mad that I could go hulk at the guy’s house, but I do not know where he live. Actually, I did contact the developers and they would not do anything until this day. You see, when you lose money in real life, there is a chance you might get it back. However, if you lost money online, most of them are unauthorized transactions, there is no way of getting it back unless the developers can reverse the transaction. We do not have anyone that is powerful enough to regulate the use of online currencies or transactions. It would not take a long time if both S.E.C and C.F.T.C are “open” to help the Congress. As well as to protect investors that use these platforms. If developers would not do anything to a small transaction like trading in-game items, then what would they do with online currency? It is already hard enough to get money back in real life, who knows how it would turns out if you lose money online? Asking hackers to stop hacking is like asking them to stop breathing. Well, perhaps a new crypto-agency is needed to catch these hackers (Henning).