The week of 15 July 2019 was one of the most interesting weeks I have had thus far in my journey along the crypto path…and I have had a few interesting weeks. We had the POTUS tweet about Bitcoin and crypto, we had the Chair of the US Federal Reserve make comments and we had both the US Senate and the US House of Reps hold all day hearings into Libra.
These events created negative sentiment in the crypto markets, but this was mainly because of the uncertain outcome of the hearings. In the end the outcome was…uncertain!. What is certain however, is that the US Congress are now very aware of crypo, they can see it’s potential and it’s threats and they are learning day by day how it all works. This of course is a good thing. We have already seen certain members of congress embracing Bitcoin, we have seen members argue the benefits of decentralisation and we have heard fear in the voices of those who can see the threat but have not yet looked beyond that to the significant problems it can solve.
I titled this post ‘US Congress opens the batting’ because this is just the start of a very long process of education and lobbying not just the US but all Governments about crypto and blockchain technology. Even next week the work continues at the G7 meeting in France. Crypto is now a high priority geopolitical issue as all nations learn about the tech and consider how it fits into their domestic and international economic strategies.
The very best podcast that sums up this weeks news is an interview with Peter Van Valkenburgh of Washington based Coin Center. The podcast is here.