US CFTC Chair Behnam, Coinbase Chief Legal Among Others To Testify at House Hearing

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June 26, 2023

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The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chair Rostin Behnam, Coinbase’s Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal and a slew of former regulators are set to testify Tuesday morning in front of a US congressional committee.

The House Agriculture Committee will meet to discuss legislation to regulate cryptocurrencies and hear from Behnam, Grewal and former CFTC Chair Christopher Giancarlo, among others.

The hearing titled, “The Future of Digital Assets: Providing Clarity for Digital Asset Spot Markets,” starts at 10 a.m. following news of a Securities and Exchange Commission complaint filed against crypto exchange Binance and days after House Agriculture Chair Glenn “GT” Thompson, R-Pa., released draft legislation to regulate the industry. 

The committee will also hear from former SEC Commissioner Dan Gallagher, who is now chief legal compliance and corporate affairs officer at Robinhood Markets, Inc. 

Former CFTC Commissioner and former SEC General Counsel Dan Berkovitz as well as former CFTC Acting Chairman and now CEO of the Futures Industry Association Walt Lukken are also set to testify.

The digital asset bill

It is likely that the committee will discuss a draft discussion — which was first released last week. 

The legislation, released on Friday, seeks clarity on when a digital asset would be considered a security and thereby regulated by the SEC, while creating a process on how digital assets are treated and how intermediaries can register with the SEC or the CFTC.

At the end of the last Congress, both House Financial Services Chair Patrick T. McHenry of North Carolina and House Agriculture Committee Chair Thompson, wanted to find a path forward together, according to senior policy people familiar with drafting the legislation. 

The draft legislation, called the Digital Asset Market Structure Discussion Draft, would create a framework that would give the CFTC jurisdiction over digital commodities, while clarifying the SEC’s jurisdiction over “digital assets offered as part of an investment contract.”