The specialists agreed that trying to ban Bitcoin is not a viable option. Coin Center’s director said that “a little crime is tolerable,” but Digital Holdings CEO disagreed.
A group of experts recently discussed what should be the best way to regulate the industry of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Digital Holdings CEO Colleen Sullivan, Coin Center’s director Peter Van Valkenburgh, and DLx Law’s co-founder Lewis Cohen all expressed their views on the matter.
Sullivan suggested that “there should be specific federal legislation on the cryptocurrency industry.” This businesswoman considers that Bitcoin is unstoppable, so there needs to be regulatory clarity. She believes that a unique regulation would help companies in the United States that want to create businesses around cryptocurrencies.
Although Cohen agrees on some ideas with Sullivan, he is not very optimistic about changes that may benefit the ecosystem shortly. This lawyer highlights that “there is a stalemate in the Senate” over the regulation on cryptocurrencies.
“We should be cautious about hoping for legislative solutions in Congress,” Cohen explained. He recalled the US regulations that prevent the advancement of any business “that puts its consumers at risk.” Therefore, “the volatility of Bitcoin (BTC) and other crypto assets puts them in a difficult position on legislative matters,” he said.
“It Is stupid” to Regulate a Technology like Bitcoin
Coin Center’s director Van Valkenburgh adopted a clear position on how to approach the regulation on Bitcoin and other digital currencies. He stated that “we should not regulate technologies but activities” that involve their use in the country. “It is stupid to regulate an entire technology like Bitcoin in the US system, but we could regulate some activities,” he explained.
According to Van Valkenburgh, there have been regulations on many of the activities involving the use of Bitcoin in the United States since 2013. As an example, he mentioned the case of a company that “is managing other people’s bitcoins and sending them on their behalf.” He explained that they “need to be registered and their customers must meet suspicious activity reporting requirements.”
The executive also spoke about the measures that the Trump administration took during the last days of his administration. Due to that “urgent midnight regulation”, exchanges “now need to enforce more than KYC policies.” They “must also know the name and physical address of the people to whom they send cryptocurrencies.” Coin Center believes that “that is going too far.”
It is Possible to Tolerate a Little Crime
Van Valkenburgh said that Bitcoin “protects the privacy of the individual and honors the autonomy of individuals.” The reason for this is that it does not require a centralized entity to conduct financial transactions.
Coin Center’s manager said that “if we believe that human beings are genuinely and generally good, a little crime is tolerable. Most people will use non-permissioned networks to do the right things.”
Sullivan disagreed with him, saying that “one of the beautiful things about Bitcoin is that it is friendly to law enforcement and regulators. By not being completely anonymous, it allows detecting nefarious activities through blockchain analysis.”
By Alexander Salazar
