The Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act would hurt investors and hamper the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's work, SEC Chair Gary Gensler said Wednesday.
FIT21 is a joint bill produced by the House Agriculture Committee and the House Financial Services Committee, and is intended to clarify how the SEC and Commodity Futures Trading Commission oversee crypto. It creates a"digital commodity" term for digital assets that do not meet the bill's definition of a security, placing those assets under the CFTC's purview.
U.S. securities laws were developed after the Great Depression to protect consumers by forcing disclosures and giving both the regulator and investors tools to safeguard customers, Gensler said. Crypto industry participants have not been willing to comply with these regulations, he said.the statutory definition of securities and the time-tested protections of much of the federal
While the bill includes a provision for companies to self-certify that they're issuing"digital commodities," it gives the SEC 60 days to assess whether those assets meet the bill's definition of a digital commodity. That is not enough time given just how many digital assets are circulating, he said.