Circle executive to testify at US Congress hearing on stablecoin payments

The Financial Services Committee issued a memo announcing an impending hearing titled “Understanding Stablecoins’ Role in Payments and the Need for Legislation.”

The House Committee on Financial Services of the United States will conduct a hearing on April 19 to discuss the position of stablecoins as a payment method and whether the ecosystem requires supporting legislation.

The committee issued a memo announcing an impending hearing titled “Understanding the Role of Stablecoins in Payments and the Necessity of Legislation.” The hearing will include information accumulated over the past year by various federal government agencies.

Dante Disparte Circle’s chief strategy officer and director of global policy will testify at the hearing. Last month, on March 11, Circle’s in-house stablecoin, USD Coin, was unpegged from the U.S. dollar after the company disclosed it had $3.3 billion in funds trapped at the bankrupt Silicon Valley Bank (SVB).

However, following the U.S. government’s rescue of SVB depositors, USDC re-pegged its value to the U.S. dollar. During this time period, hackers gained access to Disparte’s Twitter account and began promoting bogus USDC loyalty rewards to long-term users.

The impending committee hearing will center on various stablecoins and their application within the payments ecosystem. In addition, the committee will investigate the necessity of stablecoin legislation based on their collateral structures.

Regarding the proposed legislation, Circle’s CEO Jeremy Allaire stated, “There is an obvious need for broad bipartisan support for laws that ensure digital dollars on the internet are issued, backed, and operated securely.”

According to Cointelegraph, the legislation permits the U.S. government to establish interoperability standards for stablecoins.

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