Bitcoin is starting to gain some fans in Congress...

in LeoFinance3 years ago

It helps to have friends in high places

When news leaked a few weeks back that the Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin was readying laws/regulations that would all but eliminate the ability for US citizens to self custody bitcoin, there was an understandably dark cloud over bitcoin and crypto.

The price dropped significantly from almost $20k down to the $16k's.

While the news wasn't for sure, the source seemed pretty confident it was coming down the pipeline.

Fast forward a few weeks and the price of bitcoin has mostly recovered and the official announcement from the Mnuchin has yet to come.

However, many in crypto, myself included believe that it will likely be coming at some point.

Thankfully, it now appears bitcoin has some fans in very high places...

Today, several congressmen (congresspeople?) drafted a letter to Mnuchin urging him to reconsider.

The letter can be seen here btw:

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(Source: https://beta.documentcloud.org/documents/20421966-davidson-letter-to-mnuchin)

The full letter can be accessed via the link above.

Who's fighting for bitcoin?

I remember having a conversation with my father on one of our many afternoon walks a while back talking bitcoin and politics and just about anything under the sun that peaked our interest that day, where he posed a rather interesting question to me...

He said you know, I like everything you are saying but at the end of the day there are all the governments and bankers that have a vested interest in bitcoin not succeeding. They don't want this currency to replace their own and they don't want to lose the power that comes with it.

So, there are all these people/entities that would like nothing more than for bitcoin to go away. Who is fighting for bitcoin exactly?

At the time my answer was basically that the only people in bitcoin's coiner were its believers and large investors.

There were a few libertarian types like Ron Paul that seemed keen on it, but beyond that there wasn't a ton of backing in high ranking government positions.

Well, it looks like that is changing.

We have billionaires on our side now, we have academia on our side, and now we are getting politicians on our side as well.

These 4 congressmen/congresspeople represent a small minority at the moment but one that can surely grow.

Like a snowball rolling down a hill, it starts small and builds into an unstoppable force over time.

Bitcoin too is rapidly gaining friends in high places.

Stay informed my friends.

-Doc

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There is a side of me that says, "let the congresscritters legislate and the regulators regulate." We will ignore them. Time to winnow out the speculators and build a proper black market with free (as in freedom) money.

Unfortunately I think the only way bitcoin succeeds is if it works with lawmakers and regulators as opposed to goes around them. A free peer to peer electronic payment sounds great until its used to launder money, finance terrorism, human traffic, pay for hitmen, evade taxes, evade sanctions, and all the other nefarious things that people tend to do... While some people may be ok with that, the largest governments of the world are not and they have armies and jails...

Money laundering is not a crime.
Governments fund terrorism directly with official money.
Human trafficking is not created by crypto.
Assassination is as old as Cain and Abel.
Evading taxes and sanctions is noble.

Try using those in a court of law...

Legality has no moral or rational authority. Remember, slavery was "legal" and the Underground Railroad was a "criminal conspiracy to deprive people of their lawful property."

Irregardless, it has jails and armies...

All the more reason to not allow them to acquire even more power over things that were created to be trustless, decentralized solutions to government monopoly messes.

Thanks for sharing information, crypto will be used more and more.

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This is surely great news but just four congressmen still show that most congressmen still have doubts about bitcoin and crypto as a whole.

The simple fact remains that the Government is losing out heavily from the Bitcoin adoption.

Let's face the fact, no one loves what they can't control

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Considering how big lobbying is in Washington, I think it is really good for us that these large institutions are investing in BTC. The fact that they are finally willing to dabble in it tells me that they are likely hoping it succeeds on some level. With such a vested interest, they will probably be pushing pretty hard for government to follow suit.

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Yep exactly. Institutions are going to protect bitcoin from over-regulation.

This is great news. Crypto needs the USA, else it will not develop as fast and mass adaptation would be harder to achieve. I'm full aware that the US has only 4% of the world population, but it holds a lot of capital and resources. It helps everyone of money is poured in, especially the poorer countries.

Let's see how it develops, as imho, the USA has other issue ongoing than banning crypto.

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