House committee to investigate FTX collapse

The House Financial Services Committee will hold a bipartisan hearing next month to investigate the collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX and the broader consequences for the digital assets marketplace, the panel said Wednesday. 

Reps. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) – the chairwoman and ranking member of the committee, respectively – announced the December hearing as a bipartisan effort to hear from the companies and individuals involved in FTX.

"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," Waters said in a statement.

"As chairwoman of the Financial Services Committee, I have led the effort in examining and investigating the digital assets marketplace, and know that we need legislative action to ensure that digital assets entities cannot operate in the shadows outside of robust federal oversight and clear rules of the road."

McHenry similarly called for congressional oversight to ensure accountability.

"Oversight is one of Congress' most critical functions and we must get to the bottom of this for FTX's customers and the American people," he said in a statement.

"It's essential that we hold bad actors accountable so responsible players can harness technology to build a more inclusive financial system. I appreciate Chairwoman Waters' working with Republicans to deliver accountability through a bipartisan process."

After being one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges, FTX filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protections Friday, and the company confirmed over the weekend that millions of dollars' worth of assets are unaccounted for. The collapse came amid reports that at least $1 billion in client funds disappeared, affecting potentially about a million customers.

The company's founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, is facing allegations that he secretly transferred $10 billion from FTX to Alameda Research, another one of his firms that also filed for bankruptcy.