US Midterms See Bitcoin Enthusiast Elected In California

Published 5 years ago on November 08, 2018

US Midterms See Bitcoin Enthusiast Elected In California

There are few people in the American government who are open to being pro-Bitcoin and Gavin Newsom is one of them. He was willing to accept Bitcoin for campaign contributions and he has also got a history of being pro for technology in general. He even believes that the government should be based on performance and that “government information and services at every level should be thoroughly ‘digitized,’ enabling citizens to conduct business with public agencies online.”What’s this all about?Most importantly, Newsom is not the governor of California which means he is one of the most influential people in the state with the biggest technology sector in the country which is in favour of Bitcoin all at his fingertips. This gives us some reasons to rejoice but it doesn’t mean that the Democrat will necessarily go all in for several different stances that many though not all crypto enthusiasts hold. For example the right to hold privacy, low taxes and so on. As mentioned by CCN, it is well known that California is a state which is home to some of the biggest technology innovation companies in the world. One of the biggest exchanges in the world, Coinbase (based in San Francisco) is probably relieved to have a pro-Bitcoin figurehead leading the state. The California BitLicense proposal disappeared in the legislature in January but with a pro-Bitcoin governor holding the reins, it would be harder to get restrictive bills signed into the law. The freedom to join in and innovate the growth of the crypto economy, and while other states might be looking to collect fees and restrict the activities of the different crypto exchanges and other types of crypto companies, California is still free-form more than restrictive laws such as the BitLicense in New York. One of the newly elected Governors elsewhere in the country, Jared Polis has now become the head Colorado and has spoken out about the benefits of the blockchain. He has specifically advocated making Colorado a safe place for businesses related to Bitcoin stating:

“Similar to Wyoming, I will work alongside the legislature to create a statewide safe harbour designed to exempt cryptocurrencies from state money transmissions laws, and I will work to establish legislation that protects ‘open blockchain tokens’ or cryptocurrencies that are exchangeable for goods and services. These moves could allow our state to attract innovative companies and allow them to engage freely in them – as issuers, exchanges, wallet providers – without the licensing requirements of the multitude of securities and currency laws.”

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Adrian Barkley

Adrian is an avid reader who first stumbled across Crypto after reading 'The Basics of Bitcoins and Blockchains' by Antony Lewis in 2018. Since then, Adrian has immersed himself within the industry, and has a real interest in Enterprise Blockchain solutions.