White House Won’t Veto Passage of FIT21 Despite Opposition From SEC Chair Gary Gensler

The White House has signalled it won’t veto the passage of the FIT21 bill despite U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler advocating against it.

In a new press release, the White House says it does not support HR 4763, also known as the Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act (FIT21), as it currently “lacks sufficient protections for consumers and investors who engage in certain digital asset transactions.”

However, the administration says that even though it opposes the bill, it is willing to work with Congress to improve it.

“The Administration opposes passage of H.R. 4763, which would affect the regulatory structure for digital assets in the United States…

The Administration looks forward to continued collaboration with Congress on developing legislation for digital assets that includes adequate guardrails for consumers and investors while creating the conditions needed for innovation, and further time will be needed for such collaboration.”

The bill, which would give power to the Commodity Futures and Trading Commission (CFTC) to regulate digital assets as commodities if the blockchain they run on is sufficiently decentralized, is slated to be voted on later this week.

In a message from the SEC, Chair Gensler voices his dissent of the bill, saying that it would create numerous regulatory gaps, undermining current securities laws.

“It is through the securities laws that we get full, fair, and truthful disclosure that arms investors with the information they need to make investment decisions and enables regulators to guard against the types of fraud we’ve seen in the crypto field.

The crypto industry’s record of failures, frauds, and bankruptcies is not because we don’t have rules or because the rules are unclear. It’s because many players in the crypto industry don’t play by the rules. We should make the policy choice to protect the investing public over facilitating business models of noncompliant firms.”

 

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