Since I had flagged it pretty late last night I wanted to share again that the House Financial Services Committee will be holding a hearing titled "Dazed and Confused: Breaking Down the SEC’s Politicized Approach to Digital Assets" and will also be streamed to the Committee's YouTube channel.
Witnesses include:
- Mr. Michael Liftik, Partner, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP
- The Honorable Dan Gallagher, Chief Legal, Compliance, and Corporate Affairs Officer, Robinhood Markets, Inc.
- Mr. Teddy Fusaro, President, Bitwise Asset Management
- Ms. Jennifer Schulp, Director of Financial Regulation Studies, Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives
- Mr. Lee Reiners, Lecturing Fellow, Duke University
Michael Liftik is a former SEC official who now is in private practice and specializes/chairs his firms SEC Enforcement Defense and our Blockchain and Digital Asset practices. He should be able to provide fantastic insight on the SEC impact on the industry and how best to fix it.
The Honorable Dan Gallager might be the true star of the hearing as he served as an SEC Commissioner from 2011 to 2015 and Deputy and Co-Acting Director of the SEC’s Division of Trading and Markets from 2008 to 2010. To help make sense of that there are 5 Commissioners of the SEC (one who is the Chair Gary Gensler and then 4 others) and next week in fact all 5 current ones will be testifying! His insight as serving as one of the 5 previously will be a huge insight into SEC dynamics!
Teddy Fusaro is the President of Bitwise Asset Management, Inc. Bitwise manages over $4.5 billion in digital assets globally and is the sponsor of one of the Bitcoin ETFs. His insight into the 6 years that Bitwise spent getting approval is another huge catch.
Jennifer Schulp is the Director of Financial Regulation Studies at the Cato Institute’s Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives. Cato is widely respected by both sides of the aisle for its reports and studies that they publish. These are in-depth and help us answer questions as they either have access to or have on-staff key individuals to produce these projects.
The last witness is Lee Reiners from Duke University. He teaches courses in cryptocurrency law and policy, cybersecurity policy, climate change and financial markets, and financial regulation, and my research focuses on how new financial technologies and climate change fit within existing financial regulatory frameworks. Having a legal scholar on a panel is pretty commonplace so that would be why he is there.
I am currently working on a break down of the 5 bills that they will discuss but it is not finished quiet yet so stay tuned for that!
