Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Wednesday offered insights into how the Trump administration plans to approach the regulation of the digital asset industry during a congressional hearing.
Bessent testified before the House Financial Services Committee about the international financial system and said the administration wants the digital assets industry to come to the U.S. and play a global leadership role in the sector.
“We believe that the United States should be the premier destination for digital assets,” Bessent said.
“Our goal is to encourage firms to reshore, reshore or bring back to the United States best practices that are digital asset innovation and experimentation here in the United States without scaling back their ambition to influence the global industry,” he added. “The administration’s efforts to promote clear regulatory frameworks for digital assets will contribute to this goal. So will ongoing efforts to promote fair access, interoperability of payment technologies across all borders. We will continue to support private sector solutions and discourage public sector solutions that distort markets and stifle competition.”
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A lawmaker asked the treasury secretary about what the negative impacts would be if the U.S. doesn’t take a leadership role in regulating the digital asset industry.
“Well, numerous things could occur, sir, as we saw under the previous administration,” Bessent said. “An entire ecosystem, unregulated and renegade springs up outside the U.S. and illicit actors abused the value of these transfer systems and there is a technological loss here.”
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Bessent said that he’s had conversations with financial industry regulators about their experiences with digital asset regulations and the role that the U.S. could play in the industry.
“They believe it is very important, and I believe that they are a little worried that the U.S. is willing to restore its leadership here. And as I said earlier, there is a chance that digital assets can provide a substantial source of demand for the U.S. dollar,” Bessent said.
In terms of the forms of regulatory regimes that could be applied to digital assets, Bessent said that there are existing frameworks for financial regulations that can be applied to the emerging industry.
“I think that we have the blueprint with the bank regulation and adherence to anti-money laundering laws around the world, financial stability, and then I would guess that 70% of the countries would be very easy to judge yes/no, and then there will be another group. That’s why I believe that some of the bills encouraged phasing this in,” he said.
Bessent added that the Treasury Department recently delivered a report to the president on the subject “so we have safe and sound best practices and want to work with the financial industry, with new companies and entrepreneurs, as well as incumbents, the banks. There is a solution [for] banks to participate in this business whether it’s through custody or their own coins.”
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