Circle CEO Allaire to Congress: Treat Crypto as a New Asset Class

In his prepared remarks, Allaire calls for Congress to treat digital assets as its own asset class, as current regulatory burdens may make it difficult for U.S. companies to conduct business.

"Congress should adopt national policies that define and establish digital assets as a new asset class and develop appropriate rules and exemptions for digital assets. This will require legislation that likely changes our existing commodities, securities, and banking laws, among others."

Allaire is representing the Blockchain Association because Circle knows these issues firsthand, Smith said.

Blockchain technology will help regulators better track attempts at money laundering, Allaire explains in his testimony.

In his testimony for Tuesday, Allaire likewise contrasts Libra with USDC, the stablecoin jointly issued by his company and Coinbase through the Centre Consortium.

"Unlike Libra, which is attempting to establish a new global currency and unit of account, the CENTRE protocols provide a path for major reserve currencies to work as digital currencies," he said.

"The libra also upends the debate about privacy and cryptocurrency," she said, explaining that while previous concerns around crypto users centered around whether they "Had too much privacy," the issue with Libra is the opposite.

"In [contrast], concerns focus on how users' data on financial transactions would be protected, and not merged with user data from other Facebook platforms. Although the head of Calibra has pledged that ensuring privacy is a top priority, many analysts are more skeptical given previous scandals involving Facebook's use of user data and the dependence of Facebook's business model on collecting and monetizing user data."

While Allaire calls for specific legislative action, his fellow expert witnesses take more of an educational tone.

While Congress should take note of the crypto industry's criticism, Baradaran concludes that it is up to Congress to act to "Foster financial inclusion."