Key takeaways:
- The FSC chairman highlighted the legislation’s upcoming markup to provide legal certainty for digital assets.
- The US Department of Justice (DoJ) has also decided to double the size of its crypto-crime division.
The House Financial Services Committee’s (FSC) chairman, Representative Patrick McHenry, highlighted the legislation’s upcoming markup in order to provide legal certainty for the ecosystem of digital assets.
The committee is scheduled to meet on July 26 to mark up several bills, including HR 1747, the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act, HR 4763, the Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act, and HR 4766, the Clarity for Payment Stablecoins Act of 2023.
The markup on clarification for stablecoin payments, which McHenry introduced, attempts to establish legal certainty for releasing stablecoins intended to be utilized for payment.
According to the memo released on July 21, HR 4763 creates a framework for the market organization of digital assets that is suitable for their special characteristics. As long as they don’t deal in cryptocurrencies, HR 1747 exempts blockchain developers from the requirement that they obtain licenses.
The Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act was introduced the next day, and the markup date was made public the next day. The chairman of the Subcommittee on Digital Assets, US Representative French Hill, stated that creating an effective regulatory framework guards against financial crime and safeguards investors. He asserted:
“This legislation would not only have prevented FTX from stealing billions of customer funds, but also establishes robust consumer protections and clear rules of the road for market participants,”
The US Department of Justice (DoJ) has also decided to double the size of its crypto-crime division.
The DOJ released the statements by Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Nicole Argentieri at the Center for Strategic and International Studies on July 20. According to Argentieri, the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team (NCET) and the Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section (CCIPS) of the Department of Justice have merged.
NCET will keep up its efforts to look into and prosecute criminal offenses concerning bitcoin abuse after joining the CCIPS. The organization will hire a new acting director.
The number of criminal division lawyers readily accessible to work on illegal cryptocurrency concerns will “more than double,” as any CCIPS lawyer may be tasked with working an NCET case.
As the crypto space continues to flourish and gain notoriety in the financial world, these moves show a rising interest in giving regulatory clarity and addressing the problems in the digital asset ecosystem.
