U.S. lawmaker lays out priorities for regulating crypto-currencies and making America the place for blockchain innovation

The chairman of a newly formed digital assets committee, U.S. Rep. French Hill, has outlined some priorities for regulating the crypto sector and making America the place for fintech and blockchain innovation. “We want a regulatory framework that is transparent to developers, investors and potential consumers“, the legislator stressed.

A U.S. lawmaker shares his priorities for regulating crypto-currencies.

U.S. Rep. 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 on Thursday.

Responding to a question about whether the U.S. should have an exchange-traded fund (ETF) for bitcoin, he explained that it’s an area his subcommittee wants to explore. The congressman elaborated:

You’ll see us looking at a privacy act, a federal privacy act…you’ll see us looking at a stablecoin bill…you’ll see us exploring what the ramifications are for the securities market, and working with the House and Senate Agriculture Committee on the commodities aspect.

The new Digital Assets Committee will also discuss oversight of crypto-currency trading and crypto-currency exchanges, Representative Hill continued. “All of this is on the table and will be a priority for this year“.

So far, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has approved some bitcoin futures ETFs, but has not yet approved a bitcoin cash ETF.

We want to make sure America is the place for innovation in financial technology and blockchain.

The Arkansas legislator noted that “Blockchain is an important area of innovation,” highlighting:

We want this technology to be done here in the United States. We want a transparent regulatory framework for developers, investors and potential consumers when people are trying to prove a use case. And finally, we want to make sure that people have full transparency about it.

Noting that changes can be incremental rather than completely disruptive, Representative Hill described, “We want to make sure that America is the place for fintech and blockchain innovation, 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 is important to our country. We need this regulatory framework, and we need to come together to get it, or we’re going to continue to have the chaos that we saw last year with the spring of bankruptcies in the industry. That’s not helpful for developers, it’s not helpful for the industry, it’s not helpful for innovation, and it’s certainly not helpful for investors and consumers.“