House Ag Committee leader talks new bills to treat more cryptos like commodities

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Two bills introduced last week looked to solidify the roles of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission - respectively the regulators for securities and commodities in the United States.

The bills featured many of the usual suspects in legislation touching on crypto but one less familiar face was U.S. Representative Mike Conaway.

Currently serving as the ranking member of the House Agriculture Committee, Conaway has been in Congress since 2005, predating Bitcoin's whitepaper.

He's behind a bill that could transform how the U.S. handles crypto exchanges, which is important because it's the Ag Committee that governs the CFTC.Federal licensing for crypto exchanges.

The Digital Commodity Exchange act would move the standards more in the direction of calling them commodities.

The bill, alongside the Securities Clarity Act that Rep. Tom Emmer has introduced to the House Financial Services Committee, would put together a framework that assumes that certain new crypto assets are treated as commodities once they are distributed.

The bill, according to Conaway, saw its impetus in 2018, around the time that LabCFTC founder Daniel Gorfine testified before the Agriculture Committee.

The idea is that commodities operate independent of a third party who could potentially run a swindle on investors.

"We've had a couple of members of the committee that were really close to wanting to sign onto the bill," Conaway said "We think that we'll wind up with good bipartisan support." He did not specify what stopped initial support, but things have been contentious around Congress lately.

Regardless, the bill will live on past Conaway's time on the committee.

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