By David Shepardson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. House Financial Services Committee said Wednesday it plans to hold a hearing in December to investigate the collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX.
The committee said it expects to hear from the companies and individuals involved, including FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, Alameda Research, Binance, FTX and related entities, among others.
“The fall of FTX has posed tremendous harm to over one million users, many of whom were everyday people who invested their hard-earned savings into the FTX cryptocurrency exchange, only to watch it all disappear within a matter of seconds,” Financial Services Committee chair Maxine Waters said.
FTX filed for bankruptcy on Nov. 11, leaving an estimated 1 million customers and other investors facing total losses in the billions of dollars. The collapse reverberated across the crypto world and sent bitcoin and other digital assets plummeting.
House Financial Services committee top Republican Patrick McHenry said “we must get to the bottom of this for FTX’s customers and the American people. It’s essential that we hold bad actors accountable so responsible players can harness technology to build a more inclusive financial system.”
Last week, U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee chair Debbie Stabenow said Congress needs to pass legislation after the FTX collapse. Waters said Wednesday the United States needs “legislative action to ensure that digital assets entities cannot operate in the shadows outside of robust federal oversight and clear rules of the road.”
(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
