Peter Van Valkenburgh, director of research at Coin Center, explains the significance of all the governmental activity around crypto in the last week -- the President's tweets, the Treasury Secretary's and Fed Chair's remarks and of course the Congressional hearings about Libra. We discuss whether Facebook's baggage could harm regulation of the space broadly, just what Libra is and who controls it (especially compared to decentralized networks like Bitcoin and Ethereum), and how that might require different regulatory approaches. We also covered how the lack of partisanship in the line of questioning could affect Libra's prospects, the odds that the draft bill to keep tech out of finance will go through and whether the idea of a Facebook-created digital currency could spur interest in central bank digital currencies. Plus, we talk about what we thought were the most memorable moments of the Congressional hearings, and why we both felt that, amazingly, the hearings seemed to teach Congress about the merits of decentralized networks like Bitcoin and Ethereum.
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Crypto.com: https://crypto.com
CipherTrace: http://ciphertrace.com/unconfirmed
Episode links:
Coin Center: https://coincenter.org
Peter Van Valkenburgh: https://twitter.com/valkenburgh
President Donald Trump's tweets about Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies and Libra: https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1149472282584072192?s=20
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell's testimony about Libra: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/10/technology/fed-chair-facebook-cryptocurrency-libra.html
Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin's news briefing on cryptocurrencies: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/15/treasury-secretary-mnuchin-will-hold-a-news-conference-on-cryptocurrencies-at-2-pm-et.html
Senate hearings on Libra: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUQpmEjgFAU
House hearings on Libra: https://www.cnet.com/news/facebook-libra-cryptocurrency-hearings-with-congress-day-2-watch-here-live/
Rep. Sean Duffy questioning David Marcus about who can transact in Libras: https://twitter.com/crypto/status/1151531255550230529
Rep. Warren Davidson bringing up a term that has not yet been heard in the halls of Congress — "sh*tcoin": https://twitter.com/bitstein/status/1151586640307064833
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Kik's Surprising Move in Its Lawsuit With the SEC - Ep.85
The IRS Is Cracking Down on Crypto Taxes: What You Need to Know - Ep.84
Jeremy Allaire on Why the US Government Needs a New Category for Digital Assets - Ep.83
Why Crypto Regulation Is Surprisingly Cypherpunk - Ep.81
Why It Would Be Good if Libra Rivaled the US Dollar - Ep.80
'Bitcoin Billionaires' Author Ben Mezrich on the Zuckerberg- Winklevoss Rivalry - Ep.079
Libra's Dante Disparte on Why We Should Trust a Financial System Designed by Facebook - Ep.078
Edgeware's Unusual Lockdrop: Get Tokens Even With Frozen Funds - Ep.077
LocalBitcoins on How Bitcoin Trading Compares Across the World - Ep.076
Ethereal 2019: DeFi and Paths to Everyday Usage - Ep.075
To the Moon and Back With Polychain's Olaf Carlson-Wee - Ep.074
Why HTC's Exodus 1s Will Have a Full Bitcoin Node - Ep.073
Binance Hack: Should the Threat of Reorgs Be Used to Deter Hackers? - Ep.072
What Happened to Bitfinex/Tether's $850 Million - Ep.071
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Blockstack's Reg A+ Filing and the Future of Token Offerings - Ep.069
Coinbase Custody: Keep Your Crypto Safe and Use It Too - Ep.068
How Useful Is the SEC's Guidance on ICOs? - Ep.067
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