Congress to hold hearing with execs from Coinbase, FTX, Paxos and others

On December 1, Maxine Waters, who chairs the House Financial Services Committee, announced the witness list to a hearing on cryptocurrencies, which will be heavy on executives from leading U.S. crypto firms.

Scheduled for December 8, the hearing is entitled "Digital Assets and the Future of Finance: Understanding the Challenges and Benefits of Financial Innovation in the United States."

The witnesses are CEOs from leading crypto firms: Circle's Jeremy Allaire, FTX's Sam Bankman-Fried, Bitfury's Brian Brooks, Paxos' Chad Cascarilla, Stellar's Denelle Dixon and Coinbase's Alesia Haas.

Interestingly, Coinbase's global CEO, Brian Armstrong, will not be appearing, despite the firm being in the crosshairs of legislators and regulators looking to clamp down on crypto. 

No written remarks have yet appeared. 

The Financial Services Committee has been the House's front line when it comes to crypto law. A number of its members are also on the Blockchain Caucus, while Waters herself assembled a working group of the committee's Democrats to focus on crypto earlier this year. 

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Kollen Post is a senior reporter at The Block, covering all things policy and geopolitics from Washington, DC. That includes legislation and regulation, securities law and money laundering, cyber warfare, corruption, CBDCs, and blockchain’s role in the developing world. He speaks Russian and Arabic. You can send him leads at [email protected].