Blockchain Legal Resource

On September 24, 2019, the House Financial Services Committee held an oversight hearing entitled “Oversight of the Securities and Exchange Commission: Wall Street’s Cop on the Beat.” The format of the hearing was somewhat unusual in that the sole witnesses were the five sitting SEC commissioners. Though it is common for the SEC chair to testify before Congress, the other commissioners testify very infrequently, and the assembly of all five at a single hearing is extremely rare, with the last such joint testimony coming back in 2007. While the hearing covered a wide range of issues related to securities regulation and enforcement, it also touched on a number of topics of particular interest to crypto and blockchain businesses, including the application of the securities laws to digital assets.