Lawmakers accuse US prudential regulators of cracking down on the country's crypto industry

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Members of the Financial Services Committee of the US Congress requested information from regulators confirming or refuting possible concerted actions against providers of digital assets.

Chairman of the House Committee onFinancial Services Patrick McHenry, Chairman of the French Hill Digital Assets Subcommittee and Bill Huizenga, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, sent letters to Federal Reserve Board Chairman Jerome Powell ), Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) Chairman Martin Gruenberg, and Acting Head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) Michael Hsu.

Legislators demand from the heads of supervisory departmentsinformation related to possible coordinated efforts by agencies to deny banking services to digital asset companies and the crypto ecosystem as a whole.

“Today we are witnessing a revivalcoordinated action by federal prudential regulators to stifle innovation in the United States. The most striking example is the suppression of the ecosystem of digital assets by departments, ”the congressmen said in a joint appeal.

In their letter, the legislators argue thatStarting in 2012, the administrations of the FDIC, OCC, and the Fed began coordinated actions to reduce the access of cryptocurrency companies to the US financial market and banking services. Regulators covertly coerced and put administrative pressure on financial institutions to terminate any relationship with clients deemed undesirable by supervisory agencies. This has resulted in prudential regulation placing digital asset service providers on a par with arms dealers, pawnshops, tobacco shops and payday loan microfinance companies.

“Actions with digital assets are not inherentlyare risky. For example, the collapse of FTX was not caused by the riskiness of digital assets and related activities, but by banal fraud. Similarly, the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank was not caused by digital asset clients, but instead suggests a coordinated strategy to debank the digital asset market ecosystem in the United States.

Members of the Financial Services Committeethe attention of the heads of oversight agencies that the response of federal prudential regulators to fraud or mismanagement should not lead to a suppression of the entire digital asset industry.

Formerly Commissioner of the Commodity Trade CommissionUS futures (CFTC) Christy Goldsmith Romero (Christy Goldsmith Romero) said that according to the department, crypto assets should lose their anonymity, as they can be used for cyber attacks on the country's critical infrastructure.