Opinions

Regulators Hostile to Bitcoin Will Fall Out of Favor, Warns Samson Mow: Hostility to Bitcoin (BTC) from the global regulators is a double-edged sword that can hurt authorities if they lose their power, the Blockstream Chief Strategy Officer (CSO) warned. During a panel at a Liquid meetup at Litecoin Summit on Oct. 29, Blockstream CSO Samson Mow predicted that regulatory restrictions to Bitcoin could have both favorable and unfavorable consequences for the regulators themselves. The panel is a part of the event hosted by BTC technology firm Blockstream and BTSE exchange in Las Vegas, BTSE’s global marketing director Lina Seiche shared on Oct. 31.

Alongside Mow, the panel also featured Litecoin (LTC) founder Charlie Lee and industry Twitter personality WhalePanda.

During the discussion, Mow pointed out that Bitcoin really solves a lot of issues in the existing financial system such as inflation. He also predicted that global jurisdictions will eventually have to adopt it due to the multitude of benefits of the cryptocurrency.

However, they also might be hostile to it, Mow noted, urging that excessive hostility can lead to unfortunate consequences if regulators’ power is undermined by this borderless technology. He said:

“They might be hostile to it. But the thing is hostility to Bitcoin is a double-edged sword like if you are in power and you ban Bitcoin, and you fall out of power, then you’re screwed. […] People need to be careful when they are enforcing regulation and creating all this policy because you could be on the other side of the sword, down the road if you fall out of favor.”

US Lawmaker Crafting Bill to Boost Crypto Companies, Prevent SEC Overreach: US Representative Tom Emmer says he’s writing a bill designed to give crypto companies in the US regulatory certainty.

The Republican from Minnesota first announced the bill while questioning Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on October 23rd at a hearing on the company’s digital asset Libra.

Emmer called out fellow lawmakers whom he says appear to have little understanding of blockchain technology. He says it’s paramount that entrepreneurs have assurances that they won’t be wrongly targeted if they follow the rules.

Lawyer Asks Whether KYC Is Worth Exposing Users to Hacking and ID Theft: In the aftermath of the recent BitMEX data leak, lawyer and general counsel at decentralized finance startup Compound Finance Jake Chervinsky raised the question of whether exposing the public to data risks that Know Your Client (KYC) requirements entail is worth it.

In a tweet posted on Nov. 1, Chervinsky calls KYC requirements “are a double-edged sword.” He explained that KYC helps law enforcement to track illegal transactions but also exposes the public to hacking, phishing and identity theft. In the end, Chervinsky raised the question:

US Congressman: Default Reaction to Bitcoin, Blockchain Must Be ‘Yes’: U.S. Congressman Patrick McHenry, who represents North Carolina’s 10th District, says he wants regulators’ default reaction to crypto innovation to be “yes.” The Congressman — who goes by the moniker of “Mr. Fintech” on Capitol Hill — made his remarks during an interview for Laura Shin’s Unchained podcast, published on Oct. 22.

McHenry related his observations of the cryptocurrency space’s development, underscoring that the Bitcoin’s enormous value had become swiftly apparent. He soon recognized, he said, that regulators’ responses would struggle to keep pace with the wealth of new ideas:

“My conclusion was, any action by the government — really up until the last 2, 3 years — would be negative, would impair innovation and would restrict the development of cryptocurrencies and their enormous value, now and in the future.”

FATF’s Regulations to Push Criminals to Privacy Coins: CipherTrace CEO: The Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) crypto regulations will trigger a shift of criminal activity from Bitcoin (BTC) to privacy coins, it has been claimed.

David Jevans, CEO of major crypto transaction tracking firm CipherTrace, shared his remarks about criminal use of cryptocurrencies at a panel held by blockchain advocacy group, the Chamber of Digital Commerce, on Oct. 21.

During the panel, Jevans claimed that well-known cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ether (ETH) are currently the most popular among criminal actors to date due to their good brand name and the ease of purchasing and cashing out these coins. Jevans emphasized that 95% of what CipherTrace identifies as criminal activity is really using more popular cryptos like Bitcoin and Ether.

According to the CipherTrace executive, regulators’ deanonymization efforts will only make the exchange of pseudonymous coins like BTC more like banking. Jevans said:

“As we get more of this deanonymization and it becomes more like banking, I think an unintended consequence will be there will be concerted effort to use these privacy-enhanced coins.”

Two Pro-Crypto US Congressmen Note Bitcoin White Paper’s 11th Birthday: U.S. Representatives Patrick McHenry (R-NC) and Warren Davidson (R-OH), have encouraged Bitcoin (BTC)-powered innovation on the Bitcoin white paper’s 11th birthday.

U.S. congressman McHenry, who represents North Carolina’s 10th District, urged that American authorities should not stifle the new technology in a tweet on Oct. 31.

According to the official, policymakers should facilitate the development of new technologies. McHenry reiterated his previous bullish sentiments about Bitcoin, stating:

Rep. Warren Davidson: You Have to Defend Money to Defend Freedom: In an interview with Cointelegraph on Friday, Oct. 18, United States Representative Warren Davidson gave his thoughts on the Securities Exchange Commission’s (SEC) flawed approach to regulating digital assets as well as Mark Zuckerberg’s upcoming Oct. 23 testimony before the House Financial Services Committee.

Congressman Davidson (R-OH) is a figure familiar to many in the crypto world for his role in authoring the Token Taxonomy Act, as well as his general optimism about the role of blockchain in the U.S.

While discussing regulating cryptocurrencies at large as opposed to Libra, Davidson was highly precise in his taxonomic definitions:

“We use the term ‘cryptocurrencies’ to refer to everything in the crypto space, which is sloppy language. What we need to focus on is, what is Libra’s goal? Its goal is to be a currency. Let’s not conflate that with what other things in the space want to do and how we regulate them. How we look at Libra would be to apply, in my view, the Token Taxonomy litmus test.”

Bitcoin Bull Mike Novogratz: China Will ‘Eat Our Lunch’ If US Doesn’t Back Crypto and Blockchain Technology: Mike Novogratz, the CEO and chairman of Galaxy Digital, thinks China could be getting ahead of the United States in terms of embracing the crypto and the fintech revolution.

In a tweet, Novogratz shows a Walgreens in Las Vegas that’s accepting China’s AliPay.

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse Says Mark Zuckerberg Late to Crypto Party As ‘Trust Deficit’ Holds Social Media Giant Back: Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse, who recently commented that he’s worried regulators will impede the crypto space because of their challenges with and distrust of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg and the Libra project, says Zuckerberg’s testimony on the Hill today exposes his trust deficit.

While US policymakers both berate and praise Zuckerberg during his latest appearance before the US House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services, Garlinghouse is attempting to clarify that the concepts brought forth by Facebook’s project Libra are not new.

In a new interview on Fox News, Garlinghouse says while he can agree with some of Zuckerberg’s statements, he disagrees on the novelty of Libra.

“The difference is the technologies he’s talking about are already on the market today. Ripple’s a US company that’s been deploying these technologies for years. We have over 200 customers globally.”

Silk Road Prosecutor: 99.9% of Fiat Money Laundering Goes Unprosecuted: Kathryn Haun — a general partner at Andreesen Horowitz and the Justice Department’s prosecutor for the infamous Silk Road case — — says that the fiat-dominated financial system is inept at tackling the very thing it purports to worry about when it comes to crypto.

In the traditional financial sector today, “99.9% of all money laundering crimes go unprosecuted,” she told anchor Kyle Bass, during an interview for Real Vision Classics on Oct. 22.

As someone whose career involved the takedown of one of the highest-profile criminal rackets in crypto industry history and established the first-ever crypto task force for the U.S. government, Haun is no stranger to regulators’ concerns about crypto and money laundering risks.

Yet she stressed the arguable absurdity of the defenders of the existing system emphasizing concerns over an issue that current approaches have proved to be wholly inept at preventing:

“Our current system is doing a pretty terrible job of it, I’d say. Let me tell you what I mean. 99.9% of all money laundering crimes go unprosecuted. I testified before the U.S. Senate about this, and the person who cited that statistic, other than Senator Chuck Grasley, was the ex-Treasury official. And I thought that can’t be right. But I researched it and indeed it’s true.”

Privacy Vs. Security, Do Authorities Monitor Every Crypto Transaction?: Tracking cryptocurrency transactions is getting easier for law enforcement agencies. On Oct. 16, Cointelegraph reported on how authorities in the United States successfully shut down an international child pornography site. To identify the criminals, the investigators used tools developed by analytic company Chainalysis, which helped to track the Bitcoin (BTC) wallets, used by the criminals to receive payments from customers. As authorities find more and more ways to track cryptocurrencies, criminals use new techniques, and many sites remain beyond government control. Who will win this battle and can the fight against financial crimes grow into total control over users?

Can Libra and Other Crypto Find a Ground to Navigate Regulation? on CoinTelegraph.

Blockchain Lobbying: Interests Fragmenting as Crypto Field Expands on CoinTelegraph.

The Scoop sits down with 2020 Congressional candidate and blockchain enthusiast Agatha Bacelar: episode 26 of The Scoop, The Block’s flagship podcast.

Agatha Bacelar is a 27-year-old Brazilian-American running for Congress in California’s 12th District, a seat currently held by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Bacelar is not your typical Congressional candidate. With a degree from Stanford University and a professional background in blockchain, Bacelar is aiming to make tech regulation an important conversation in politics. In this conversation she discusses how she got into politics, her time working at Democracy Earth, her stance on universal basic income, and why now is the time to run against the most powerful Democrat in the country.