Congress preps hearing on 'Future of Digital Assets Regulation' for later this month

The House of Representatives is preparing to hear testimony on digital asset regulation later this month, The Block has learned. 

Three sources with knowledge of the matter say that the House Agriculture Committee's subcommittee on commodity exchanges, energy, and credit is preparing a hearing entitled "Future of Digital Assets Regulation" for June 23.

The subcommittee had not yet established a witness list. 

The hearing takes place as the House and Senate Agriculture Committees, which oversee the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, are both considering legislation to place more authority over cryptocurrency markets with the CFTC rather than the Securities and Exchange Commission. 

Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and John Boozman (R-AR), the chair and ranking member of the Senate Ag Committee, are working on joint legislation addressing this gap, as first reported by Politico and which a representative for Senator Boozman confirmed to The Block. 

Leading the House Ag Committee is Representative David Scott (D-GA), who last month took FTX to task for a proposal to disintermediate options trading. 

Representatives for Congressman Scott and his Republican counterpart on the full committee, Glenn Thompson (R-PA), had not returned requests for confirmation as of press time. 

Recent market events like the collapse of Terra and crypto lending platform Celsius' freeze on user withdrawals have cast a pall on crypto's reputation in Congress.