That was the question columnist Laura Shin sought to answer when she invited Coin Center executive director Jerry Brito and director of research Peter Van Valkenburgh onto the most recent episode of her Forbes podcast, “Unchained.” She starts by explaining Coin Center’s policy philosophy:
When it comes to blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies, many people compare their stage of development to the internet in the early 1990s. Admiring how the internet flourished under light-touch regulation, Jerry Brito, in 2014, launched Coin Center, an independent non-profit research and advocacy center focused on the public policy issues facing cryptocurrencies. Brito says the organization represents the technology, and so is not a trade association representing the industry. His and Coin Center’s goal is to get the same mostly hands-off regulatory attitude the U.S. had toward the internet applied to cryptocurrencies and blockchains.
The conversation is wide ranging, covering the early history of Coin Center up through our most recent policy achievements, both defensive and proactive. The candid discussion looks inside the tactics we use in the service our education and advocacy mission, and offers a peek into the types of relationships we have built with policymakers around the country over the last two years. In her write up, Laura pulled out a quote that particularly captures our approach:
When that happens, he says, Coin Center will say to regulators, “Here’s a gap, here’s an issue, here are the alternative ways you might fill that gap, and here are our preferred routes. It’s a route that allows you, the regulator, to meet your ends, but in doing so we don’t do any inadvertent harm and you do it in the most light-touch possible way that preserves the freedom to innovate.”
The full episode is available on Forbes.