As the dust cleared from Tuesday’s contentious brawl between Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler and House Financial Services Committee Republicans, Wednesday’s scheduled hearing on stablecoin legislation held the potential for a more robust discussion on the future of crypto regulation.
Ahead of the event, the committee posted a 73-page bill with the same text of draft legislation authored by then-Chair Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and ranking member Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.), whose roles are now flipped, that had circulated during last year’s congressional session. The hearing also included a number of star witnesses central to the U.S. stablecoin ecosystem, including Dante Disparte, chief strategy officer for USDC issuer Circle, and Austin Campbell, former chief risk officer for stablecoin firm Paxos. Also invited was Adrienne Harris, superintendent of the New York Department of Financial Services—the only agency in the United States to introduce a regulatory regime around stablecoins.
