Crypto lobby groups are gaining traction in Washington as the threat of regulatory bottleneck looms The blockchain industry is looking to shed the negative association between digital assets and crime as the threat of additional regulatory oversight looms. 4947 Total views News
Crypto-focused lobbying groups in Washington, DC are playing an increasingly vital role in reorienting policymakers away from the view that digital currencies are used primarily for illegal transactions. Now, they are preparing for, potentially, their biggest battle yet.
The Blockchain Association, an industry trade group representing crypto firms, has added 10 members to its brass since December 2020, bringing its total to 34. Kristin Smith, the group’s executive director, told Bloomberg that the association s members are extremely concerned about federal regulators clamping down on the industry over misplaced fears.
Tyler Winklevoss thinks Bitcoin is past the risk of a US ban cointelegraph.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from cointelegraph.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
For someone who devotes so much of his life to Bitcoin and finance and who has made and lost a small fortune twice now podcaster Peter McCormack doesn’t actually seem to care that much for money.
“I did have a lot of money in my life a couple of times,” says the 42 year old on a call from his home in Bedford. “But the wealthiest time of my life was the most miserable. I had a company in London that turned over three million a year. Big team. Money in the bank, good salary,” he says.
“My marriage broke up and I couldn’t have been in a worse place. Money didn’t make a difference. Even if I’d been really rich, I still would have had the panic attacks and anxiety. I still would have been miserable.”
Weirdly enough, there’s some truth to all these claims.
“I tried to create electronic money in 2003, 2004,” he says, as if inventing a groundbreaking new system of money transfer is something you might knock up after dinner one night in your shed. “Obviously it never took off. But I always believed that the Internet should have its own money. I just didn’t figure out how to solve this double spend problem.”
Unlike many crypto leaders, Mashinsky had a successful career long before blockchain. A tinkerer and inventor since he was a kid, Mashinsky holds 50 patents covering aspects of the tech behind Skype, Netflix video streaming and Twitter among others. He’s raised more than a billion in funds, headed eight companies since the 1990s and overseen $3 billion in exits. Mashinsky even talked the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority into hiring his company, Transit Wireless, to install WiFi and cell phone coverage throughout the subway system.
| UPDATED: 14:30, Mon, Jan 25, 2021
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