ICOs

Congressman Invites Crypto Industry Leaders to Capitol Hill to Discuss ICOs

from Trust Nodes 5 years ago 0 0 940

Republican Ohio representative Warren Davidson has invited 32 cryptonians to Capitol Hill ahead of his plans to present Initial Coin Offering (ICO) related legislation to Congress this autumn.

Davidson’s office has invited Andreessen Horowitz, Union Square Ventures, Intercontinental Exchange, Kraken, Nasdaq, CME Group, Circle, Coin Center, Ripple, Harbor, CoinList, among others, to attend a Sept. 25 forum on Capitol Hill, according to the Politico offshoot Axios.

They say the aim is to discuss “light touch” regulations on ICOs following a number of decisions by the Securities and Exchanges Commission (SEC).

SEC and Davidson’s office have been having conversations and have discussed the plans, but their position is unclear.

It would however be primarily a question for congress, with Davidson planning to present a bill on the matter this autumn. In June he said:

“I intend to lead legislation for initial coin offerings to clarify the role of regulators, protect consumers, address national security concerns, and facilitate a pro-growth environment for businesses to raise capital.”

What the bill will say exactly is unclear, but Davidson is seemingly seeking input from the crypto industry, so it should hopefully take into account numerous concerns.

Primarily, the number of startups and Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) have gone down recently, with the recent Tesla episode showing just how difficult it can be for tech companies to go public.

On the other hand, ICOs are booming due to a number of new innovative business models, but they lack reasonable and clear rules that take account of their unique characteristics.

Generally there appears to be agreement within the industry that some sort of guidance is needed and preferably a self-regulatory organization to oversee it.

Likewise there appears to be agreement that a number of SEC requirements are inappropriate, especially those concerning investment prohibitions which go against business model requirements for many of these tokens to be as distributed as possible.

SEC has not publicly consulted with the industry and has not taken many concerns into account, except to give ground by stating that a sufficiently decentralized network is not a security.

Davidson, however, sits in the subcommittee that oversees SEC and their work, with Congress now apparently looking to intervene as national politics enters the crypto scene.