Audio Of The Week:
If you are curious what the state of play is in the US regulatory stance towards crypto and blockchain, the best place to turn is Coin Center, the crypto industry’s voice in DC.
And in this podcast, Coin Center’s Director of Research Peter Van Valkenburgh gives a fairly clear and concise view of where things are and where they are going.
Comments (Archived):
Hat tip to the folks at Coin Center, who have done such a great job representing the blockchain/crypto space and educating everyone. The next steps in discussing regulation should provably be working on solutions to present to the SEC/Congress. This should not fall just on the shoulders of Coin Center. Everyone involved in the space should start offering possible solutions.
It’s tine for federal fianacial disclosures to include cryptocurrency holding
Beware of the cryptocurrency complex. Wasn’t too impressed with Peter’s performance on capital hill.
Thanks good easy on the ear explanation. For what its worth ref blockchain crypto coin noted this few days back thought it interesting https://www.iol.co.za/news/…
Hey Fred, if you are ever looking for something to blog about, I would love to hear your thoughts on voice apps/skills — do you see this as an opportunity comparable to mobile apps, or is the opportunity substantially smaller or larger? Any thesis that drives your thinking here?
Smaller than mobile IMHO – prob. more akin to the old “additive” vs. disruptive.It’s a fun space to play with, but really hard to monetize by itself for most…and in the long run, I think it can/will be a nice way to help things be more seamless and “just work”, but I don’t think it will be it’s own pure O.S. per-se.
I am torn, but tend to think it will produce a few big winners. Could be additive, but I view mobile apps as mostly additive as well.For starters this should enable hands free computing, which should open up some “this couldn’t be done before” opportunities that are game changers. Also changes things for many handicapped people, which could be an entry point for disruption.With over 20% of Google searches done by voice and over 20% of US households with a voice device (probably amzn echo) it seems like this could be a significant interface change that creates new opportunities. I find it very reasonable to expect to personal assistannts in many verticals to be delivered via voice apps (perhaps an automated Master chef you can talk to while cooking). Plus booking appointments and stuff — will OpenTable eventually become a “voice first” company? Is “voice first” the new “mobile first”?One thing that dampens my enthusiasm is the whole billing and authentication and privacy thing, which may limit things quite a bit unless it is solved in some way. Or it may mean the best opportunities are only accessible to the operating system (Alexa, Cortana, Google assistant, Siri….)
Can’t argue any of that.There prob. will be some big winners – right now it’s absolutely poised to be incumbents and the O.S. providers.There is a lot we can do with voice signature if/when the systems open us up to the opportunity for authentication, privacy, and billing stuff…but the power is 100% in their hands right now (a 3rd party is working on an open system, but I fear consumers won’t really adopt it enough).
Authentication and billing are interesting for sure. I tend to agree with you though, adoption won’t be there. I have yet to experience a “game changing” experience using voice, aside from a simple request to alexa to get the weather or play a song (and even that song playing experience is hit or miss depending on request).
Which Coin Center limited edition t-shirt did you get, the To The Moon or perhaps the Alpaca? I can’t see it, but does Coin Center publish accounts that reveal who might be making larger donations? Is there undue influence?Does the US government restrict how many lottery tickets, guns, or ‘fatburgers’ the average citizen may buy with their hard earned money? All three are very likely to diminish their wealth and health if consumed to excess, but does gov and the political class move to regulate? The wealthy classes are a vested interest group too, and they see a threat to their privileged position in the guise of crypto. America is a plutocracy, and the legislative elite are proxies for the financial elite. The people need to wake up to that and act accordingly.Madoff got away with it for decades because his class looked the other way. Regulation and policing are not the same thing.There’s nothing ‘regular’ about innovation. It is by definition highly irregular.
The wealthy classes you speak of here will be in combat with those early adopters of incentivized crypto-asset holders, who hope to position themselves as the new wealthy class – the upswing for incentivized crypto-assets likely being orders of magnitude bigger than of any or perhaps even the sum of all the wealthy classes.
yes, it’s a war between the ancient regime and the arriviste nouveau riche. the ‘public interest’ is cited as the motive for regulation. same old playbook, same old war.
Regulation is a dark cloud and a rainbow at the same time. My last tweet covered that:https://twitter.com/wmougay…
At Intercoin, we should have some interesting news soon about the SEC.
What news?
So if we see the kind of regulation Peter has outlined, with there being two types of token, one an issued security and one open source software, will the market gravitate to the latter as a safe haven? Will BTC become once more the safest of bets, both as a store of value but also as a shield from legal consequences?