The United States could learn from China’s innovations in digital currency, says Securities and Exchange commissioner Hester Peirce.
Fielding questions via webcam at this week’s Crypto Finance Conference in Switzerland, the public sector leader known as CryptoMom, called for the U.S. to:
“Learn from what other countries are doing and take the best of what they’re doing and reject the worst of what they’re doing.”
China outpacing U.S. on digital currency
Last fall, Mark Zuckerberg’s congressional testimony on Facebook’s Libra leaned heavily on the idea of U.S. innovation falling behind. Now, China’s central bank, which just printed a second-edition manual on digital currencies for Chinese officials, will soon launch a state-backed cryptocurrency that has public sector leaders like Peirce taking notice:
“A lot of innovation is happening in China. I think that the government recognizing the potential is something we should learn from.”
Other issues before the SEC
The SEC is working on its “accredited investor” designation. The protection measure limits who enters the digital marketplace.
Peirce said:
“If you’re an accredited investor you’re able to invest in certain things other people can’t invest in. So that has been a barrier in this space to some people getting involved in projects … for legal reasons people are restricting purchases to accredited investors. And so recently we put out a proposal to expand what an accredited investor is..”
Peirce also expressed interest in promoting “safe harbors”, a designation to protect taxpayers from penalties against forked assets, saying:
“I’m hoping we can come up with some kind of a framework, a safe harbor framework that would allow people to get their token projects off the ground, to actually launch their networks.”
Later, Peirce added, “I think, again, we have lessons to learn.”
Bitcoin News Summary – December 23, 2019
Blockchain analytics firm, Chainalysis, reported some downbeat price predictions based on its tracking of funds acquired by the massive PlusToken ponzi. PlusToken raked in over $2 billion from mostly Chinese citizens before the scam was busted and several leaders arrested. Those that remain at large have just under half their ill-gotten gains yet to sell. However, the upcoming halving may offset further downside.
Roger Ver’s exchange received criticism from the crypto community, including many Bitcoin Cash adherents, for implementing trading of the new HEX token. HEX is often described as a scam for its design, which favors and enriches its creator, Richard Heart. HEX is also backed by former BitConnect shill, Trevon James. The exchange’s CEO said on Twitter he was listing HEX “out of spite” for Bitcoiners.
Coinfloor, the oldest exchange in the UK, announced that it will end support for Ethereum and Bitcoin Cash in January 2020. Coinfloor’s founder said the technical burden of supporting Ethereum’s changing architecture is not worth its trading volume. The exchange will focus on Bitcoin only.
A 19-year-old simjacker from Brooklyn, New York was arrested for hacking over 75 people in 2019. He used SIM swaps to takeover their accounts and steal their crypto. If your email, exchange or other logins depend on access to your phone, consider adding an extra layer of security to guard against this growing threat.
Before we conclude, here’s this week’s “Bitcoin quick question”: is Bitcoin vulnerable to quantum computing? The short answer is yes – most systems relying on cryptography in general are, including traditional banking systems. However, quantum computers don’t yet exist and probably won’t for a while. In the event that quantum computing could be an imminent threat to Bitcoin, the protocol could be upgraded to use post-quantum algorithms. If you want to read more about this topic just visit the link in the description.