Coin Center, a nonprofit research and advocacy agency, demonstrates how Bitcoin works before the members of the Terrorism and Illicit Finance Subcommittee of the House Financial Services Committee on June 29, 2017.

Addressing concerns among government agencies

The growing population of Bitcoin miners and enthusiasts has alerted the government about the security repercussions which eventually led to series of discussions. The aforementioned committee held a hearing assessing the national security involving Blockchain technology transactions.

The US Congress is concerned about the rise of Bitcoin now that it has been linked to several illegal activities and money laundering with their major worry being its potential use for terrorist funding hence the introduction of Combating Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing, and Counterfeiting Act of 2017 bill.

Fighting for Bitcoin cause

Coin Center executive director Jerry Brito testified before the committee to explain how Blockchain networks like Bitcoin actually work on hearing entitled “Virtual Currency: Financial Innovation and National Security Implications”.

According to the memorandum of the said hearing, they’ve particularly explored “terrorists and illicit use of financial technology (FinTech), the national security implications of virtual currencies such as Bitcoin, and the use of “blockchain” technologies to record transactions and uncover illicit activities”.

For his part, Brito stressed on the fact that lawmakers should be approaching Blockchain technology as purpose-agnostic platform. Just like before the internet hit mass adoption, it was also rich with innovative potentials.

Thus, the Blockchain advocacy agency called for a sound government approach on cryptocurrency. Furthermore, they also aim to educate the Committee so that they will understand the whole scenario and avoid relying solely upon third party information when assessing information about digital currency.

Clarifying concerns

Coin Center believes that the underlying concerns about the Blockchain technology is the lack of proper regulations and deep understanding of the technology. The agency argued that such issues can be avoided by helping the governing bodies get sufficient working knowledge about cryptocurrency.

In a demonstration day event held last week, Coin Center shared about the benefits of cryptocurrencies and tackled their alleged risks. They partnered with Xapo, Chainalysis, and Elliptic to show how a typical user interacts with the Bitcoin network.

According to Coin Center, the demo covered the processes starting from setting up a digital wallet and a hosted wallet, the stringent AML/KYC process, sending a transaction, to viewing transactions.

With this educational effort for the cryptocurrency, it is still uncertain whether or not the government will consider the new facts laid before them into their decision making.