United States Congress is officially more open to Bitcoin and blockchain technology. Several hearings throughout the month of July are seeing many House representatives extol the virtues of Bitcoin. Most are comparing it to Facebook’s centralized Libra project, which is sparking quite a debate.
Senators Compare Favor Bitcoin Over Libra
Libra is not a truly decentralized payment system. Facebook is spearheading the project and benefiting the most. The company’s future plan is to bring other companies into the Libra ecosystem and allow them to kill the competition through monopolizing payment processing. That’s the plan for making it enticing to use Libra.
House minority Representative Kevin McCarthy is slowly becoming a Bitcoin convert. In a recent interview with CNBC, he states he’s a big fan of the blockchain and that companies like Facebook make money by selling the personal data of individuals.
Not only does McCarthy explain his opinion in the interview, he is also expressing his opinion very publicly through print media. You can read more about McCarthy’s thoughts in this New York Times op-ed column.
U.S. Senators are very clearly drawing comparisons between blockchain projects controlled by private companies and central authorities and projects that are truly decentralized and serving the common good with no single entity capitalizing off of the data or exchange of value involved.
China Can’t Stop Bitcoin
Republican Congressman Patrick McHenry also admits in a recent interview with CNBC that “there is no capacity to kill Bitcoin.” He goes on to say that “even the Chinese, with their firewall and their extreme intervention in their society could not kill Bitcoin. So a distributed ledger, full and open in the essence of Bitcoin is a first mover in this space…”
This sentiment along with many others shared by other Senators is all coming to a head. It’s not just because of Libra. It’s also because of Bitcoin’s halving event, which will occur sometime in May of next year. The halving event cuts the block reward miners receive for securing the Bitcoin network in half. This will drive down supply and consequently drive up demand.
As politicians and business pundits accept both, the general public will likely begin to see increasing clarity with regard to regulations governing innovation.
Chairman Crapo Says Bitcoin Can’t Be Stopped
Idaho Senator Michael Crapo believes banning Bitcoin is impossible saying “I’m pretty confident we couldn’t succeed [in doing that]…” Crapo shares his thoughts in a recent hearing with Jeremy Allaire, the CEO of a blockchain project Circle. Here they are sharing their opinions on blockchain and Bitcoin:
As politicians continue to accept the inevitable adoption of cryptocurrencies, more and more of these hearings will take place. It’s safe to say that the month of July, 2019 will stand as a big one for the cryptocurrency revolution. The months to come may also have a lot to say about the future of blockchain and crypto too.
Maybe the bullish sentiment of these Senators is what is driving crypto prices up recently?
