Utah’s current senator and a Senate hopeful told a room of cryptocurrency developers on Friday that digital money represents a revolution in financial freedom and personal privacy unlike any since the dot-com boom of 30 years ago.
But, Utah Sen. Mike Lee said, unlike the internet, many in Washington, D.C., are itching to control the emerging industry through regulation, or take it over entirely, which could spell disaster for the country — stymieing competition, squelching alternatives to the weakening dollar and infringing on Americans’ constitutional rights.
The worst outcome for crypto
“As the U.S. dollar continues to be unstable, continues to be inflated because we effectively print money every time Congress wants to spend more money than it has — which is a lot — and as the world becomes more acclimated to digital transactions, something like crypto needs to exist,” Lee told the audience of a few hundred seated at the Salt Palace Convention Center in downtown Salt Lake City.
The very worst outcome, Lee said, is if the Federal Reserve — the nation’s central bank — were to create its own centralized digital currency. The second worst outcome, Lee said, is if the federal government regulates private cryptocurrencies, like Bitcoin and Ethereum, “to death.” The third worst outcome, Lee said, is if the industry is hobbled by a patchwork of state laws that result in death “by 50 cuts.”