Congressman Hill to ‘make sure’ US is the place for blockchain innovation

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The chair­man of the new­ly formed U.S. con­gres­sion­al sub­com­mit­tee on dig­i­tal assets has pledged for pro­gres­sive cryp­to reg­u­la­tions to ensure that “Amer­i­ca is the place for inno­va­tion in fin­tech and blockchain.”

Speak­ing on CNBC’s Squawk Box on Jan. 26, Con­gress­man French Hill offered some of his first insights into what is antic­i­pat­ed for cryp­to reg­u­la­tions in the country.

The Finan­cial Ser­vices Sub­com­mit­tee on Dig­i­tal Assets, Finan­cial Tech­nol­o­gy, and Inclu­sion, which is chaired by Hill, was put togeth­er on Jan. 12 with the remit of “iden­ti­fy­ing best prac­tices and poli­cies that con­tin­ue to strength­en diver­si­ty and inclu­sion in the dig­i­tal asset ecosystem.”

Dur­ing the inter­view, Hill said that Bit­coin (BTC) was not quite ready to be a real-time pay­ments indus­try yet, but added that “we want to make sure that Amer­i­ca is the place for inno­va­tion in fin­tech and blockchain is part of that future.”

When asked about the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a spot Bit­coin exchange-trad­ed fund (ETF), Hill com­ment­ed that the new sub­com­mit­tee also wants to explore this possibility.

The SEC has repeat­ed­ly reject­ed appli­ca­tions for a spot Bit­coin ETF, includ­ing one by the world’s largest cryp­to asset man­ag­er, Grayscale. 

Oth­er areas of the sub­com­mit­tee’s focus will be relat­ed to fed­er­al pri­va­cy law, a sta­ble­coin bill and the ram­i­fi­ca­tions for the secu­ri­ties mar­ket, while work­ing with the Sen­ate on the com­mod­i­ty aspect of the cryp­to industry. 

He said cryp­to trad­ing and exchanges would need to be “over­seen” but did not spec­i­fy which agency would do so.

“All of that is on the table and all of that is going to be a pri­or­i­ty this year,” he said.

Relat­ed: Next House com­mit­tee chair rein­tro­duces bill on cryp­to innovation

The host implied that the Secu­ri­ties and Exchange Com­mis­sion (SEC) has been drag­ging its feet, inquir­ing “as long as Gary Gensler is there, do you see any progress being made?”

Hill said that Gensler was the “cop on the beat” last year claim­ing to be an expert in this area, adding:

“So we’ll invite him up to Con­gress to tell us what he knows, what he rec­om­mends in this area, and what he was doing last year when we had so many chal­lenges for our investors and consumers.”

The com­ments and out­look are pos­i­tive when put into con­text with the SEC which has been accused by Sen­a­tors of reg­u­lat­ing by enforce­ment and con­duct­ing extra­ju­di­cial sweeps on the cryp­to industry.



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