The U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services Committee will hold a hearing on stablecoin regulation on April 19. The hearing comes after the House of Representatives announced a new draft bill to provide a regulatory framework for stablecoins. Some of the invited speakers have released pre-records of their planned testimony.
Stablecoins “look a lot like very basic cash instruments. […] Stablecoins are actually pretty mundane,” Austin Campbell, managing partner of zero-knowledge consulting firm and adjunct professor at Columbia Business School, will tell the committee. Campbell firmly believes that stablecoins will broaden the dollar’s reach and increase financial inclusion if legislation doesn’t impede its progress.
According to Campbell, pushing stablecoin issuers out would have a lot to lose in the U.S.: “The biggest winner from U.S. regulatory action and legislative inaction over the past year has been Tether, an offshore stablecoin that offers little in terms of transparency or consumer protection.”
Blockchain Association chief policy officer Jake Chervinsky called stablecoins a "revolutionary upgrade" to traditional payment systems. Like Campbell, Chervinsky touted that a dollar-denominated stablecoin could increase financial inclusion and preserve the dollar’s role in the international economy. According to Chervinsky, neither the SEC nor the Commodity Futures Trading Commission currently have the regulators needed to regulate stablecoins. It is difficult to interpret stablecoins as securities, Chervinsky said, and the CFTC does not have jurisdiction to regulate the spot market.
Stablecoin legislation should follow to eliminate competition among regulators, Chervinsky said: “At the federal level, stablecoins should be subject to oversight by prudential regulators such as the Federal Reserve or OCC. Stablecoins should also be exempt from overlapping federal regulation by the SEC or CFTC to provide regulatory clarity and clarity of accountability between agencies divide."
New York State Department of Financial Services Superintendent Adrienne A. Harris, Circle Chief Strategy Officer and Head of Global Policy Dante Disparte, and Financial Fairness Consumer Reporting Director Delicia Reynolds Hand will also testify before the hearing.
