Coinbase, one of the leading digital wallet providers, has hired John Collins (former adviser to the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee) as its head of government affairs. He will be working on policies related to the virtual currency.

As the leader in the space, our main goal is to educate people who are going to form the regulations around it in its formative years so its potential remains.”

Currently, Bitcoin start-ups are unsure what regulations would be implemented in the future. The comment period on the BitLicense regulations is expected to end next week. Many Bitcoin companies have adopted the “wait-and-see” attitude towards regulations. Some have even chosen to operate outside of the United States until matters are cleared up. Others have expressed their concerns about the effect that uninformed regulations can have on the whole industry.

The leaders of Coinbase have discussed these issues with several government agencies in order to inform discussions about digital currency. The company states that they are making these efforts in order to continue being an open platform and educate people about Bitcoin. Mr. Collins says he wanted to “build a larger coalition of folks” who understood Bitcoin’s future (including government officials). Educating regulators now is the top priority in order for them to be able to make informed decisions.

Coinbase’s whole mission is to really make Bitcoin easy to understand and easy to use,” Mr. Collins said. “We really do believe that this technology has a lot of promise in this sector and other sectors.”

Read more here – “Senate Adviser Jumps to Bitcoin Start-Up Coinbase,” (Sydney Ember, NYT).