Establishing clear regulatory lanes for digital assets in the US
Courts and regulators are working hard to clarify the legal position of digital assets and their service providers, but legislation is needed to close some gaps and protect US consumers and investors. The House Financial Services Committee and the House Committee on Agriculture have unveiled proposals to address these gaps and preserve America’s role as a global leader in finance, technology and innovation.
OMFIF is joined by Congressman French Hill, vice chairman of the House Financial Services Committee and chairman of the new Subcommittee on Digital Assets, Financial Technology and Inclusion. Along with experts and practitioners from the public and private sectors, we discuss the role of federal agencies, the jurisdictional turf war over supervising digital assets and how legislators should tackle the classification of tokens and digital assets. Consumer protection measures and implications of broader retail exposure to crypto will also be discussed.
Speakers
French Hill
Congressman
US House of Representatives
French Hill
Congressman
US House of Representatives
A ninth-generation Arkansan, Congressman French Hill has represented Arkansas’s Second Congressional District since January 2015. He serves as the Vice Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee and as Chairman of the new subcommittee tasked with overseeing all areas related to digital assets and financial technology. Additionally, he is a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Foreign Affairs Committee. He was also elected to the Republican Steering Committee for the 118th Congress, which determines committee assignments for Republican members of Congress.
Prior to his congressional service, Congressman Hill was founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer of Delta Trust & Banking Corporation. From 1989 to 1991, he also served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Corporate Finance, where one of his key assignments was representing the U.S. as a negotiator in the historic bilateral talks with Japan known as the Structural Impediments Initiative (SII).
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Rep. Hill led the design of U.S. technical assistance to the emerging economies of eastern and central Europe in the areas of banking and securities. In 1991, at the age of 34, President Bush appointed Rep. Hill to be Executive Secretary to the President’s Economic Policy Council (EPC), where he coordinated all White House economic policy. For his leadership and service at the Treasury and the White House, Rep. Hill was awarded the Distinguished Service Award by U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Nicholas Brady in January 1993. Prior to his Executive Branch Service, from 1982 until 1984, Rep. Hill served on the staff of then-U.S. Senator John Tower (R-TX), as well as on the staff of the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, & Urban Affairs.
Throughout his career, Rep. Hill has been active in civic affairs. He is a past president of the Rotary Club of Little Rock and served as the 2013 chairman of the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce. He has received numerous awards and recognition for his long-time support of the Boy Scouts of America, the arts and humanities, tourism, and historic preservation in Arkansas. He is an avid outdoorsman.
Rep. Hill is a magna cum laude graduate in Economics from Vanderbilt University. He and his wife, Martha, have a daughter and a son. The Hill family resides in Little Rock.
Timothy Massad
Research Fellow and Director, M-RCBG Digital Assets Policy Project
Harvard Kennedy School Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government
Timothy Massad
Research Fellow and Director, M-RCBG Digital Assets Policy Project
Harvard Kennedy School Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government
Lewis McLellan
Editor, Digital Monetary Institute
OMFIF
Lewis McLellan
Editor, Digital Monetary Institute
OMFIF
Brian Whitehurst
Head of Regulatory Affairs and Regulatory Counsel
Lukka
Brian Whitehurst
Head of Regulatory Affairs and Regulatory Counsel
Lukka