US lawmakers plan to discuss spot markets for digital assets during congressional hearings next week.
The House Agriculture Committee will hold a hearing on June 6 titled “The Future of Digital Assets: Bringing Clarity to Digital Asset Spot Markets.”
The committee has jurisdiction over the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and has begun work with the House Financial Services Committee, which oversees the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Notably, over the past year, both the CFTC and the SEC have exercised their jurisdiction through enforcement actions and public statements.
Coordination between committees
Earlier this month, the two House committees held a joint hearing titled “The Future of Digital Assets: Measuring Regulatory Gaps in Digital Asset Markets,” in which former CFTC Chairman Timothy Massad told lawmakers he would like a system where the two agencies work together.
“I would rather see a system where we have both agencies working together, working through the SRO [саморегулівну організацію]and that way the industry could actually pay for it,” Massad said.
This comes after Republican House Agriculture Chairman Glenn “GT” Thompson introduced the bipartisan Digital Commodity Exchange Act last year, which would give the CFTC authority over the new term “digital commodities.”
House Financial Services Committee Chairman Patrick T. McHenry has also worked on bills to regulate cryptocurrency, working with Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., on a stablecoin bill, but later found a rift.
Ahead of the House Financial Services Committee hearing on May 18, two stablecoins emerged: one from Waters and one from McHenry.
“It looks like we’ve moved further away from the bipartisan agreement and are now looking at two different pieces of legislation,” Congressman Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., said during the hearing.
No witnesses have yet been announced for the June 6 hearing.
