Cointime (February 07) — On Tuesday, Jay Clayton, Chairman of the Securities & Exchange Commission, and J, Christopher Giancarlo, Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, testified before the United States Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affair about cryptocurrency. This discussion could lead to new rules for ICO and Cryptocurrency. It could also lead to more fluctuations in the cryptocurrency market.









Throughout the hearing, one can see Clayton and Giancarlo are interested in the potential of blockchain technology. They both understand the role cryptocurrency played in the modern financial ecosystem. Giancarlo pointed at the enormous prospects financial markets infrastructure, data verification, record-keeping and charity funds management. He also said Cryptocurrency and blockchain are invariably linked.





In response to Tom Cotton, US Senator Arkansas, question about the “value” of Bitcoins, Giancarlo answered,

"It is important to remember that if there were no bitcoins, there would be no DLT (Distributed ledger technology)."





They are both trying to educate and protect investors through regulations and programs like CFTC’s Lab CFC. Giancarlo stressed that education is the route to oversee the cryptocurrencies.





In his testimony, Giancarlo wrote the technology has the potential to increase economic efficiency, reduce the centralized system’s risk, combat fraud and improve data quality and governance.





Giancarlo concluded,