Industry Leaders Establish The “Blockchain Association”

On Tuesday morning, it was revealed that an assortment of the leading firms in this nascent industry would be joining hands to establish the so-called “Blockchain Association.” Letting the world know about its existence, the recently-created association released a press release via Medium to bring awareness to its goals, aspirations, and plans for the future.

Opening the press release, the consortium of like-minded firms highlighted the growth and development of the blockchain and crypto asset ecosystem. Although it is evident that crypto’s recent round of growth was ground-breaking, the group of firms noted that there are still a variety of “minefields” that innovators in this space will have to traverse over, including concerns of consumer protection, fraud, manipulation, and the like from regulators around the world.

Keeping this regulatory uncertainty in mind, the founding members of the association revealed that it would be launching a Washington DC-based “non-profit trade association” that will be focused on pushing a unified narrative to U.S. regulatory bodies that are located in America’s capital.

The Blockchain Association elaborated on the details, writing:

Our objective is to create a pro-innovation environment for the industry, meeting the growing global demand for accessible, transparent and democratic financial and technical systems.

To accomplish this plan, the group intends to build relationships between the cryptocurrency community and industry leaders, to educate regulators and common consumers about this up and coming technology, and to advocate for policies and regulation that “enables innovation” via crypto assets and decentralized systems.

It is important to note that this isn’t a fruitless venture, as influential firms like Coinbase, Protocol Labs, Circle, Digital Currency Group And Polychain Capital will be joining the Blockchain Association from the get-go.

As was noted, the idea for this lobbying group first came up a few months back, and since then, the aforementioned startups and funds began to meet over coffees, dinners, video calls, and formal meetings during New York‘s Blockchain Week to put together this association that could change the fate of this industry, to say the least.

Speaking with The Washington Post, Coinbase’s chief of legal and risk Mike Lempres, who took a leading role in the development of the Blockchain Association, explained his thoughts, noting:

The Blockchain Association is an effort to get the preeminent companies in the space together so [policymakers] know they’re hearing from companies that welcome regulation when it’s appropriate. We’re not companies looking to game the system, but trying to develop a legal and regulatory system that’ll stand the test of time.

This news follows Coinbase’s move to establish a so-called “political action committee (PAC),” as reported by Ethereum World News in July 2018. In a similar piece of news, it was revealed that Coinbase had started its own, in-house PAC, which are organizations that pool funds and donations in a bid to endorse governmental representatives that align with its ideology and aspirations.

These two recently-established organizations will likely only strengthen this industry, but it may not be an instantaneous process because as the Blockchain Association pointed out, “there’s [still] a lot to be done.”

Photo by Jorge Alcala on Unsplash