Californians, please help us stop A.B. 1326

We’re deeply concerned about A.B. 1326, a misguided virtual currency licensing proposal moving quickly through the California legislature. We’ve blogged about the problems with the bill, urged supporters to send emails to their legislators, and released a coalition letter from 17 companies and nonprofits to educate lawmakers about the issues with the proposed license.

Today, we’re proud to join friends at Taskforce.is and Fight for the Future in announcing a new campaign to stop the virtual currency license: No Bitcoin License.

No Bitcoin License is hosted by Taskforce.is and uses CallPower technology to connect you to your state senator. If you are in California, just visit the website, enter your phone number, and you’ll be connected to your lawmaker’s office. There’s a super short script on the site for you to follow.

Visit No Bitcoin License.

Phone calls can make a huge difference in campaigns like this. State senators get contacted far less often than you would think. Even just 10 calls to a single state senator’s office can be highly influential.

That means your decision to pick up the phone could be exactly what we need to slow down this bill, or stop it altogether.

Why should you care?

A.B. 1326 is so vague that it’s hard to know which companies and businesses it will affect;

A.B. 1326 is technically inaccurate;

Bitcoin experts haven’t had adequate opportunity to weigh in on the bill because there hasn’t been even one full informational hearing to discuss the merits of the proposal;

The bill grants sweeping authority to the Commission of Business Oversight to reject license applications—including provision license applications—without administrative appeal;

A.B. 1326 would implicate video game currencies and smart contracts; and

The bill's focus on a single technology, Bitcoin, will be illogical and ill-suited if applied to other virtual currencies, and thus threatens to chill innovation around current and future alternative virtual currencies.

Worst of all, passing this bill now locks California into an early stage in the development of virtual currency technology, before we have a good sense of where the technology and its uses are headed.

We still have a chance to stop this bill. If you’re in California, please speak out. And if you’re not in California, please help spread the word.

Visit No Bitcoin License.

UPDATE (9/7/18): Note that the original url for this advocacy campaign was "nobitcoinlicense.org." The website has been updated to nobitcoinlicense.com as the prior domain expired and is no longer controlled by Taskforce.