United States Congressman Bill Huizenga Pushing Congress on Crypto Regulation

United States Congressman Bill Huizenga is pushing the U.S. Congress to concentrate on crypto regulation.

Huizenga revealed this in an interview with Bloomberg.

Huizenga is looking to see more oversight in what he thinks is a “muddied and fairly opaque” initial coin offering (ICOs) and digital assets markets.

Huizenga claimed that Congress should authorize financial regulators such as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to oversee the market in acquiescence with similar regulations that are prevailing over other currencies and stocks.

Huizenga said that the primary reason for concentrating on crypto regulation is to make sure that investors involved with ICOs and cryptocurrencies are safeguarded and given appropriate transparency.

The Republican from Michigan remarked that lawmakers from both parties, while acknowledging a demand for action, still have not settled on an agreement on how regulation of crypto markets should be done.

The key challenge is deciding on how digital currencies should be categorized, Huizenga said, adding that, “Everyone’s trying to figure out whether it’s fish or fowl. It turns out it might be a platypus. It’s kind of an unknown, or something sort of in between. How do we deal with that?”

The congressman repeated the sentiments of Coinbase’s Chief Legal and Risk Officer Mike Lempres who stressed that financial regulators categorize digital tokens within the obligations of their institution. While the SEC believes cryptocurrencies as securities, the CFTC claims that digital tokens are commodities. Other regulators, such as FinCEN and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), state that cryptocurrencies should be deemed money and property, respectively.

Huizenga is a member of the Financial Services Committee and is Chairman of the Capital Markets, Securities, and Investment Subcommittee.