Coin Center celebrates three years of crypto-advocacy
Looking back on three years of working to protect your right to innovate with open blockchain networks.
Three years ago this week, Coin Center opened up shop. It’s been an amazing ride and we’re incredibly proud of all the work we’ve done to keep open blockchain networks free from undue regulation and open for innovation.
Our first year we set about to establish ourselves as the go-to resource for policymakers, and to build relationships across government. We did that and continue to do so through our educational publications, as well as frequent panels, briefings, and consultations. Our second year we stepped our efforts to articulate what good policy looks like and to advocate for such policy. We did that, and continue to do so, by publishing reports on state licensing, securities, and AML regulation and advocating for our light-touch approach through informal advocacy and formal testimony before Congress and other bodies. And we conceived of and helped form the Congressional Blockchain Caucus.
This past year, our third year, we focused on delivering. We worked to develop, and have the Uniform Law Commission adopt, a model act for state licensing based in significant part on our state framework, with such features as exclusion of non-custodial applications and a start-up on-ramp. We also helped members of the Blockchain Caucus develop and introduce a bill that would eliminate tax on cryptocurrency purchases under $600. And unheralded is our behind-the-scenes work making sure bad policy ideas never see the light of day.
We’ve got our work cut out for us next year as we’ll seek not just to get our policy ideas in the ULC model act and the Cryptocurrency Tax Fairness Act enacted into law, but we’ll be pushing for other proposals we’ve made, like a federal safe harbor for non-custodial uses of cryptocurrency and exploring the potential of a federal money transmission license to supplant the current archaic 50-state morass.
None of our work would be possible without the support of our donors to whom we’re incredibly grateful. About half of our supporters are corporate donors including many of the top companies in the ecosystem—including Deloitte, which I’m thrilled to announce today joins the rank of our top supporters. The other half of our support, however, comes from individuals like you who are passionate about this technology and want to see it expertly represented and defended before government. So, if you haven’t yet contributed to Coin Center, I hope you will consider making a donation. Any amount is incredibly appreciated—and you can get some cool thank you gifts too!
Here’s to year four of our voyage. Full steam ahead!