US Lawmaker Outlines Priorities to Regulate Crypto and Make America the Place for Blockchain Innovation

The chairman of a newly formed digital assets committee, U.S. Congressman French Hill, has outlined some priorities to regulate the crypto sector and ensure America is the place for fintech and blockchain innovation. “We want a regulatory framework that’s transparent for developers, investors, and potential consumers,” the lawmaker emphasized.

U.S. Congressman French Hill (R-AR), who was recently appointed chairman of the newly formed subcommittee on “Digital Assets, Financial Technology and Inclusion,” discussed several crypto-related priorities for his subcommittee in an interview with CNBC Thursday.

Replying to a question about whether the U.S. should have a spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF), he explained that it is an area his subcommittee wants to explore. The congressman detailed:

You’ll see us look at a privacy law, a federal privacy law … you will see us consider a stablecoin bill … you will see us explore what are the ramifications for the securities market, and work with the Agriculture Committee in the House and Senate on the commodity aspect of it.

The new digital assets committee will also discuss the oversight of cryptocurrency trading and crypto exchanges, Rep. Hill continued. “All that is on the table and that’s going to be a priority for this year.”

So far, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has approved some bitcoin futures ETFs but has yet to approve a spot bitcoin ETF.

The lawmaker from Arkansas stressed, “Blockchain is an important innovation area,” emphasizing:

We want that technology to be done here in the United States. We want a regulatory framework that’s transparent for developers, investors, and potential consumers as people try to prove a use case. And finally, we want to make sure the people have full transparency of that.

Noting that changes can be gradual rather than completely disruptive, Rep. Hill described: “We want to make sure that America is the place for innovation in fintech and blockchain, and distributed ledger technology is part of that fintech future.”

Urging Democrats and Republicans to work together, the lawmaker opined: “This is an area that’s important for our country. We need this regulatory framework, and we need to come together to have it or we are going to have continued chaos that we saw last year with the spring of bankruptcies across the industry. That’s not helpful to the developers, to the industry, to innovation, and certainly not to investors and consumers.”

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