SEC Chair focuses on digital assets during hearing in front of the US House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services
SEC Chair Gary Gensler testified in a hearing before the US House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services in which he addressed the SEC’s efforts in the areas of efficiency and competition, equity markets, private funds, integrity disclosure, artificial intelligence and predictive data analytics, cryptocurrencies, climate risk disclosure, resiliency, and Treasury markets. During the hearing, cryptocurrencies and digital finance took center stage, with Republican lawmakers criticizing the SEC’s aggressive approach to regulating cryptos and decrying the “lack of clarity” around regulation in the sector. Gensler doubled down on his approach, which critics and many in the industry have called “regulation by enforcement”, saying: “It’s not a matter of lack of clarity. I think this is a field that in the main is built up around non compliance. And that’s their business model.” Gensler continued to argue that the existing securities frameworks are appropriate for regulating cryptocurrency firms, and that they need to “come into compliance”. In addition to cryptocurrency regulation, Gensler answered questions on the Commission’s ESG disclosure efforts and underlined the importance of the US providing consistency and comparability to disclosure regimes already taking place around the world.
Gensler’s testimony comes as the House Financial Services Committee released a new draft discussion bill to provide a regulatory framework for stablecoins. In particular, the bill would place the Federal Reserve in charge of non-bank stablecoins, enact a temporary ban on new stablecoins that are not backed by a hard asset, and allow federal banking regulators and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to set interoperability standards between stablecoins. The bill also directs the Federal Reserve to study certain implications of a digital dollar on monetary policy and financial stability. It remains to be seen whether the bill is passed into law.
Bloomberg
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