The House Financial Services Committee, which includes both Republican and Democratic members of Congress, held its first decentralized financing hearing Tuesday morning.
A hearing was called by the House Subcommittee on Digital Assets, Financial Technology and Inclusion. “Decoding DeFi: Breaking Down the Future of Decentralized Finance.”
French Hill, R-Ark.’s subcommittee chairman, explained that the goal of this committee was to “explore emerging topics like tokenization and DeFi” The following are some examples of how to get started: “consider how blockchains can be used in finance.” Nevertheless, some of his colleagues from the other side of aisle have questioned if DeFi is useful for anything else than facilitating criminal behavior.
“What we have here is an effort to liberate billionaires from income taxation,” Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Cali.) told the witnesses that DeFi allows wealthy people to escape tax obligations.
Click here to read our latest opinion: What is the future of finance? TradFi plus DeFi
“Every time a billionaire successfully cheats on his taxes, a member of the Freedom Caucus earns his wings,” Sherman Said
Peter Van Valkenburgh (director of research at Coin Center) countered Sherman later, saying that regulators did not give enough direction to the actors within the crypto industry on how to adhere with regulations.
“Tax evasion is a crime. It should be aggressively policed,” Van Valkenburgh said. “I do not, however, think that tax evasion and its existence warrants a 100% surveilled and controlled financial system.”
“A difficult area in the cryptocurrency space has been getting clear tax guidance from the IRS on how Americans can pay their taxes when they earn capital gains, or perhaps their wages, on these networks,” Van Valkenburgh was added.
The hearing, lasting about 90 minutes ended hours before Donald Trump is scheduled to debate Kamala Haris for the very first time. Although the Harris camp is being tight-lipped on any crypto-related measures the Vice President might implement, should she be elected in November. the Trump campaign continues to embrace the industry.
Trump’s family and himself have recently endorsed World Liberty Financial. Maxine Waters (D-Cali.) said that the DeFi project was a good example of why blockchain technology is dangerous.
Click here to read our latest opinion: Maxine Waters is not a villain yet
“Bad actors took advantage of the opportunity to scam potential users. Laura Trump and Tiffany Trump’s X accounts were hacked, and scammers used them to announce links to a coin falsely claiming to represent World Liberty Financial,” Waters stated during the hearing on Tuesday. “According to the analysis, at least 200,000 people viewed the posts, and approximately 2000 people purchased $1.8 million worth of the fake token.”
Five witnesses were heard by the representatives: Brian Avello was chief legal advisor of UDHC, Rebecca Rettig is chief legal and policy adviser of Polygon Labs, Amanda Tuminelli was chief legal counsel of DeFi Education Fund, Peter Van Valkenburgh worked as director of research for Coin Center, and Mark Allen Hays served as senior policy analyst for Americans for Financial Reform.
The lawmakers will continue to meet until September 27. They will then take a break until November 12 for the election period. The hearing on Tuesday comes just as Congress faces a deadline of September 30 to pass funding legislation.
Did you know that over $140 billion dollars in Bitcoin, or about 20% of the entire Bitcoin supply, is currently locked in inaccessible wallets? Or maybe you have lost access to your Bitcoin wallet? Don’t let those funds remain out of reach! AI Seed Phrase Finder is here to help you regain access effortlessly. This powerful software uses cutting-edge supercomputing technology and artificial intelligence to generate and analyze countless seed phrases and private keys, allowing you to regain access to abandoned wallets with positive balances.
