United States Senate hearing on virtual currencies

On 6 February the U.S. senate The Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, held an open hearing entitled, ‘Virtual Currencies: The Oversight Role of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission.’ The witnesses in this open session were:  The Honorable Jay Clayton, Chairman, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission; and The Honorable J. Christopher Giancarlo, Chairman, U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission. In their statement both chairmen pledged the work on future thought regulation of ICO mechanism.

Mr Clayton added in a discussion on ICO: “From what I have seen, initial coin offerings are securities offerings… (They) have nothing to do with distributed ledger technology beyond the coin itself’. Regarding the consumer protection Mr. Giancarlo added that CFTC never conducted this much outreach for any other financial product. In his words ‘We owe it this new generation to respect their enthusiasm about virtual currencies with a thoughtful and balanced response, not a dismissive one. And yet we must crack down hard on those who try to abuse their enthusiasm with fraud and manipulation’ You can find the full statements from The Honorable Jay Clayton and The Honorable J. Christopher Giancarlo, alongside the recording of the hearing, on this link.