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Last night, my amendment to the Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act (FIT21) UNANIMOUSLY passed the House.

My amendment that was included in the FIT21 promotes transparency regarding how our nation's strategic enemies may be exploiting the digital assets marketplace to invade the privacy of Americans and steal valuable intellectual property.

In more detail: My amendment requires the Treasury Secretary, in consultation with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), to complete a study and submit a report to Congress that identifies any digital asset registrants that are owned by governments of our foreign adversaries. The report will determine whether foreign adversary governments are collecting or trading personal data about American citizens in the digital asset markets and evaluate whether foreign adversary governments are misusing or stealing any intellectual property of digital asset registrants.

Why is this a concern? Well, last June, the CEO of Prometheum – the first and only SEC / FINRA approved Special Purpose Broker Dealer for digital assets – stated that Prometheum and its Chinese Communist Party (CCP) partners entered into a joint agreement in December 2018 to develop a blockchain trading system where the Chinese partner took a 20% stake in Prometheum.

In case anyone has any doubt about the CCP ties, Prometheum’s Chinese partner company was founded in 1969 by a former senior CCP official. In 2021, the party’s Central Committee posthumously named him a “National Excellent Communist Party Member.”

The fact of the matter is that because Chinese companies are generally required by Chinese law to share data with the Chinese government, these companies present substantial risks to U.S. individual privacy and national security. This is simply how the CCP and other foreign adversaries operate. They infiltrate our markets while the Biden Administration looks the other way and punishes American companies who are trying to operate in the U.S. but face endless regulation by enforcement.

I am honored that my amendment to protect Americans from having their personal data shared with the CCP and other foreign adversaries unanimously passed the House. Protecting you is ALWAYS my top concern.