the theft of hundreds of thousands of bit coin from the exchange mt. gox, and reports that hackers stole $1.6 billion in cryptocurrency over the last seven years. congress must pay close attention to development in this space. the capital markets subcommittee held a meeting examining cryptocurrency and initial coin offering markets in march of this year, and the terrorism and illicit finance subcommittee held a hearing to discuss illicit use of virtual currency and the law enforcement response last month. as chairman of the monetary policy and trade subcommittee, i am particularly interested in any impact digital security may have on monetary policy and the international financial system. we will discuss its use, both in the united states and abroad. thus far, some countries like vietnam and china have banned or restricted it altogether. others, such as switzerland and malta, have fostered it with a mostly hands-off approach and regulatory guidance. others have adopted it, including tunisia and ecuador, by issuing their own central bank digital currencies.