House Financial Services Subcommittee on Digital Assets, FinTech & Artificial Intelligence

“A Golden Age of Digital Assets: Charting a Path Forward”

February 11, 2025 2:30PM

"Thank you, Mr. Chair and congratulations on your selection as Chair of this Subcommittee. I look forward to our partnership this Congress. Thank you to the witnesses for your time and willingness to help this committee with its work.  

The Trump Administration and House Republican leadership have clearly demonstrated their eagerness to enact crypto-friendly laws and regulations. One of President Trump’s first executive orders established a Digital Assets Working Group that will be comprised of regulators handpicked by the crypto industry. In addition, just days before taking office, President Trump issued a meme coin to further his own financial interests.

The crypto industry spent $119 million in this last election, and proposals such as a cryptocurrency stockpile and the prohibition of a central bank digital currency speak to the crypto industry’s powerful influence. Not surprisingly, House and Senate Republicans have also announced plans to make digital assets legislation a top priority.

Cryptocurrencies remain highly volatile and speculative instruments that have the potential to destabilize our economy. I continue to have serious concerns about crypto scams, money-laundering, and illicit finance uses. In 2023, Americans lost over $5.6 billion to such scams and illicit addresses received approximately $40.9 billion in cryptocurrency.

On the advent of this golden age of crypto, I remind my colleagues of the crypto winter in which major companies, including FTX, BlockFi, and Celsius collapsed, and Sam Bankman-Fried was convicted of massive fraud. Fortunately, because of our robust securities and consumer protection laws, most of the victims were not U.S. citizens. Similarly, the damage caused by the failures of Silicon Valley and Signature Banks did not spread to our broader financial system.

I agree with most of my colleagues that a regulatory regime is needed, but not one that reflects a wish list from industry advocates. As this Committee considers legislation to address stablecoins and the market structure, I hope we can have collaborative and bipartisan discussions.

We must seek input from law enforcement, the financial crimes enforcement network, academics and other experts to ensure robust consumer protection, anti-money laundering, and illicit finance safeguards are in place.

I worry that by allowing the digital assets industry access to our banking system, we invite the next financial disaster. I served on this Committee during the 2008 financial crisis and watched American taxpayers bail out major financial institutions that made risky decisions in the name of innovation. The digital assets industry has had years to prove its use cases. Promises of financial inclusion, lower costs, and faster payments are better achieved through public policy solutions.

This Subcommittee should focus its time on exploring legitimate innovations that have the potential to expand economic access. Last Congress, I was encouraged by the bipartisan approach to exploring artificial intelligence. Through the Working Group on AI, which I co-led alongside Chair Hill, and a roundtable I hosted at MIT with faculty and experts, we found shared policy goals. The emergence of international competitors, such as DeepSeek, demonstrates that we must move quickly to ensure U.S. competitiveness.

Additionally, I hope to continue working with my colleagues on fintech policy issues we seem to agree on. These include addressing financial data privacy, expanding data portability, reducing the cost of payments, and encouraging innovation that expands economic access and financial inclusion.

I look forward to continuing the important work we began last Congress."