Why Congress Needs to Act on Digital Assets – Reps. French Hill and Bryan Steil

Last November, the American people clearly spoke. They support President Trump and the agenda he campaigned on: A “Golden Age” in America. A key component of President Trump’s agenda is leveraging the U.S.’s leadership in advanced technology and economic strength for the benefit of all Americans.

Nowhere is this renewed focus on using our strengths for the future more necessary than in the development of digital assets and blockchain operations, where Washington has been asleep at the wheel for far too long.

According to surveys, 55% of American investors own Bitcoin, and more than 40 million own some type of cryptocurrency. Even our largest financial institutions are now embracing digital assets and the transformative power of blockchain technology. There is little doubt that these innovations will make financial products more affordable and accessible. From stablecoins to tokenization of assets, to decentralized finance applications, these advancements have the potential to lower costs and expand opportunities for both investors and consumers.

Despite its transformative potential and widespread adoption, the Biden-Harris Administration refused to recognize the promise of this technology. Officials weren’t just indifferent – they were openly hostile. No matter how safe or innovative, products associated with "crypto" or "digital assets" were stonewalled and litigated into purgatory. Regulators refused to provide meaningful guidance on how this technology could be implemented in a compliant manner. Worse, they implemented new policies to make adoption even more difficult.

Today is a new day. There is broad agreement that we need fit-for-purpose regulation that unlocks opportunities while providing the consumer and national security protections Americans deserve. The world counts on us to ensure that global payment systems are not used for nefarious purposes, including financing terrorism and drug trafficking. Because of the Biden-Harris Administration’s abdication of responsibility over the past four years, the United States has fallen behind and others, including our adversaries, are developing products and systems that threaten the primacy of the dollar.

Despite the Biden-Harris Administration’s reluctance, during the last Congress House Republicans led the charge and passed landmark legislation creating a forward-looking regulatory framework for digital assets. This bipartisan bill provides appropriate protections for consumers and proactively addresses national security and money laundering issues while securing the United States as a leader in digital assets and blockchain innovation.

Congressional Republicans will now pick up where we left off and work in a bicameral manner with the Trump Administration and financial regulators to ensure that the open hostility from the Executive Branch of the past four years is eliminated.

Congress has a unique opportunity to enact legislation that plays to American strengths. We will provide a foundation that will unleash innovation in the digital assets and blockchain space, while at the same time solidifying the status of the U.S. dollar as the reserve currency and the preferred method of payment for lawful transactions around the globe.

As leaders of digital assets on the House Financial Services Committee, our immediate priorities include establishing a federal framework with clear rules around stablecoins, providing clarity for the initial sale and distribution of tokens, creating pathways for the registration of centralized platforms for the trading of tokens, implementing strong protections against money laundering and terrorist financing, and ensuring fair competition.

We have already begun this work by recently releasing our discussion draft to establish a framework for the issuance and operation of dollar-denominated payment stablecoins in the United States.

There are those who share the Biden-Harris administration’s view that the digital assets ecosystem is, in the words of former SEC Chair Gary Gensler, “full of hucksters, fraudsters, and scam artists.” But that sentiment only underscores the urgent need for these efforts. Effective legislation and proactive regulatory engagement will ensure good actors with innovative products can thrive in the U.S. and consumers are appropriately protected from rug pulls, market manipulation, and other fraudulent activity.

We are the world leaders in finance and technology because, over our history, we have looked forward and embraced innovation as a means of lowering costs, increasing opportunity, and enhancing protections. We need to be true to our history and do it again.

With our newly formed Bicameral Working Group for Digital Assets, we will work in lockstep with Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott, Senate Agriculture Chairman John Boozman, House Agriculture Chairman G.T. Thompson, and White House Crypto Czar David Sacks to advance legislation that delivers on the promises we made to the American people. The “Golden Age” of digital assets in the United States begins now.