On March 9, 2021, Congressman Patrick McHenry and Stephen Lynch introduced a bill called ‘’Eliminate Barriers to Innovation Act of 2021’’, which aims to evaluate the existing legal and regulatory framework of digital assets in the United States.
The legislation aims to provide clear guidelines in defining what makes cryptocurrency a security or a commodity, that is, to clarify which regulatory agency has jurisdiction over a particular token or cryptocurrency.
If approved, the bill would form a working group with representatives from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), along with the experts from financial technology sector and academic researchers.
The working group would be expected to produce a report within a year, analyzing the current regulations and their effect on primary and secondary markets in the U.S. Further, the report would lay the groundwork for future best practices on fraud prevention and investor protection in private key management and cybersecurity space.
As of now, the bill was pulled down due to procedural actions in the legislative arm.