Over the course of the open hearing, Clayton and Giancarlo traded testimony over what can be regulated, what should be regulated and how, while offering a broader outlook on the long-term future of virtual currency markets and blockchain tech. The testimony drew a useful distinction among three pillars of the virtual currency ecosystem (for lack of a better unifying term): cryptocurrencies, “a replacement for dollars;” ICOs, “like a stock offering;” and distributed ledger technologies, or the technical framework generally known as blockchain. On a question of the intrinsic value of cryptocurrency: Giancarlo defended Bitcoin’s value, explaining the process of mining and how it correlates with price (or sometimes breaks from that correlation, as economists he cited have suggested).

https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/06/virtual-currencies-oversight-hearing-sec-cftc-bitcoin/