Gary Gensler, head of the U.s.a. Securities and Commutation Committee, has confirmed that his agency does non have the dominance or intention to ban cryptocurrency.

While responding to questions during a House Committee on Financial Services hearing on Tuesday, Gensler emphasized that prohibiting crypto does not autumn within the SEC's mandate, stating, "That would be upward to Congress."

"Information technology'due south a affair of how nosotros get this field within the investor consumer protection that we have and also working with bank regulators and others — how practise nosotros ensure that the Treasury Department has it within Anti-Money Laundering, tax compliance," Gensler said.

"Many of these tokens do run across the exam of being an investment contract, or a annotation, or a security," he added, emphasizing the need to bring crypto "within the investor protection remit of the SEC."

Gensler also noted "the fiscal stability problems that stablecoins could raise" as a priority for the bureau.

Representative Patrick McHenry took aim at the actions and stance taken by the SEC regarding digital assets under Gensler's leadership during the hearing, accusing the SEC head of failing to human activity in accordance with the agency's "long-held practice of noticing comment on rulemaking and procedures."

"Some of those comments you lot have made take raised questions in the marketplace and made things less than clear. You lot've fabricated seemingly off-the-cuff remarks that move markets, you've overlooked rule-making by putting a statement out without due process, and you lot've essentially run cruel over American investors."

Gensler responded that the SEC follows the Authoritative Procedures Act.

McHenry also cited comments made by Gensler to the Committee in 2022, while he was instruction at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in which he criticized by rulings from the SEC classifying Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) as commodities.

When asked of his electric current views on the thing, Gensler stated, "I'yard not going to get into any one token, but I think the securities laws are quite clear — if you're raising coin [...] and the investing public [...] take a reasonable anticipation of profits based on the efforts of others, that fits inside the securities law."

Related: US lawmaker proposes condom harbor for digital tokens in new bill

The hearing came on the aforementioned day that McHenry proposed the Clarity for Digital Tokens Act of 2022, which draws heavily on the prophylactic harbor proposal put forward by the pro-crypto SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce in February 2022.

During the hearing, McHenry pressed Gensler on whether he had taken the time to review Peirce'south proposal. Gensler evaded answering whether he had reviewed Peirce'south proposal specifically, saying:

"Commissioner Peirce and I have talked on her thoughts around a potential rubber harbor. I call up that the challenge for the American public is that if nosotros don't oversee this and bring in investor protection, people are going to get hurt."