Several San Francisco-based financial technology companies have joined together to lobby regulators and lawmakers on cryptocurrencies. Interestingly, they have plans to pay their lobbying firm in digital coins. Ripple and several other digital money transfer startups are among this group.

The Motivation behind this Coalition

The name chosen by this new group of companies is “Securing America’s Internet of Value Coalition”, as they plan to achieve interconnected financial systems where payments across the globe can be made instantaneously without the need for middlemen. The group has announced to retain Klein/Johnson Group as their lobbying firm because of their expertise in lobbying for technology and financial services issues.

These efforts come at a time when Congress and government agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) are striving to devise new federal rules for digital currencies and their underlying technology ‘blockchain’. Official concerns surrounding the crypto market are high price swings, usage of cryptocurrencies for criminal activities and several fraudulent public offerings. Majority of the fintech companies are seeking government interventions which promote innovation and competition by reducing barriers to entry in this sector. “These companies plan to weigh in with the Congress, the SEC, the IRS and all other agencies which deal with cryptocurrencies,” said Izzy Klein, co-founder of Klein/Johnson.

Federal Government is interested!

“We comprehend the fact that this is complicated and there is an enormous amount of disinformation on this subject, but we are delighted by the amount of interest in this topic in D.C,” said Chris Larsen, executive chairman of Ripple. The group plans to pay their lobbying firm Klein/Johnson about 10,000 XRP and $25,000 every month. Klein explained that his company will convert the XRP price into dollars when it will mention the payments on federal lobbying forms. Currently, a deeply pressing issue for Ripple is whether its XRP digital token is deemed a security and subjected to SEC regulations or not.

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