Lummis’ staff has cryptocurrency focus

Lummis’ staff has cryptocurrency focus
 
By Nick Reynolds
Casper Star-Tribune 
Via Wyoming News Exchange
 
CASPER — U.S. Sen.-elect Cynthia Lummis announced a list of hires to her senior staff Monday that includes some of the top names in the state’s burgeoning cryptocurrency sector, setting up the former Wyoming treasurer as a potential leader in the emerging policy area for the 117th United States Congress. 
Since Lummis purchased her first bitcoin in 2013, cryptocurrency — a blanket term for encrypted digital assets used to purchase goods and services — has been at the core of her policy interests. In recent weeks, the senator-elect has promoted the currency’s potential in interviews with national media like Fox News as well as numerous industry publications, outlining plans to not only introduce the concept to members of Congress but to demonstrate its value as a practical means of exchange. 
And she’ll have a team designed to do it. 
In addition to hiring outgoing Wyoming Rep. Tyler Lindholm — a critical ally for the blockchain and cryptocurrency industry in the Legislature before his defeat in this year’s primaries — as state policy director, Lummis also hired the Wyoming Banking Division’s general counsel, Chris Land, as her general counsel in D.C. 
Land was a key architect of Wyoming’s regulations for banking with cryptocurrency, which were finalized by that office late last year. 
The state’s first “cryptobank” (or Special Purpose Depository Institution), Avanti Financial, received approval from the Wyoming Banking Division earlier this year. 
Lummis’ hires represent a wide swath of legislative experience in Washington and Wyoming — former Wyoming Sen. Leland Christensen will serve as state director, while Wyoming natives Kristin Walker (Lummis’ campaign manager) and Darrin Munoz will serve as chief of staff and legislative director, respectively. 
The additions of Lindholm and Land to her policy team is a sign cryptocurrency legislation will likely be a top priority for the former congresswoman during her first term in the U.S. Senate, Walker said in a text message, aligning her with crypto-friendly Republicans like Idaho Sen. Mike Crapo and Indiana Sen. Todd Young. 
Educating the rest of the Congress, Land said in an interview with the Star-Tribune, will likely be the office’s first priority before Lummis rolls out a legislative agenda. 
“There are a lot of things in Washington, D.C., that need to get done before Wyoming can get the full benefit of what we’ve done here,” Land said. “We need to start with education,” he added. “We know where the problems are with federal and state law, but we can’t get there until we raise the level of education.”
The news generated optimism in Wyoming’s cryptocurrency sector, whose efforts they feel have lacked an ally on the Hill since the state began building a regulatory framework for cryptocurrency several years ago. 
Matthew Kaufman, a corporate attorney for Cheyenne law firm Hathaway & Kunz who specializes in blockchain and cryptocurrency, said he has dealt with more than 50 different businesses looking to relocate their businesses to Wyoming this year alone. 
While there is a philosophical split among those in the cryptocurrency sector about what level of regulation would benefit the industry, he said that finding a correct regulatory balance for those businesses is recognized as critical to helping cryptocurrency thrive, particularly given the financial sector’s growing amenability to cryptocurrencies around the world. 
Lummis’ team, he said, could help accomplish that at a federal level and help gratify the cautious optimism that has led companies to look toward Wyoming. 
“There’s a real beauty in what Wyoming has done because it has passed regulations,” he said. “Because it’s a new industry space, it needs some regulatory structure to it just so people have certainty, but it’s not regulation that is so prescriptive that it becomes overly burdensome and difficult for companies to figure out how to comply.” 
“Even if it is only at the state level for right now, it’s a start for a brand new industry,” he added. “I’m excited to have people like Cynthia Lummis working at the federal level alongside other people who understand this sector and understand not only the impact that it can have but also the details and minutiae of what Wyoming has done to enable some of this stuff. Having that perspective at a federal level will be hugely important.” 
While the 116th Congress heard 40 separate bills regarding cryptocurrency and blockchain — the technology that makes cryptocurrency possible — just two of them ultimately passed into law. 
And they had little regulatory bearing, while several others passed by the House primarily focused on their application in criminal activity. 
The learning curve is so great, members of the cryptocurrency sector have even created a group, Crypto for Congress, specifically to educate members of the nation’s greatest deliberative body on what their industry could do. 
Meanwhile, the federal government has shown renewed interest in interfering with Wyoming’s cryptocurrency regulations, which to this point are unmatched anywhere else in the United States. 
“It will be helpful for Wyoming’s delegation in DC to be actively involved to protect Wyoming’s lead,” Caitlin Long, founder of Avanti Financial and a key figure in developing Wyoming’s cryptocurrency regulations, wrote in a statement to the Star-Tribune. “In the past few months, two different attacks on Wyoming’s lead have originated out of DC — on the one hand, the national bank regulator is trying to elbow in and let nationally-chartered banks leapfrog Wyoming’s banks, and on the other hand the incumbent national banks are now lobbying for federal intervention to stop our progress (and the progress of banking innovators generally). Senator-elect Lummis has publicly indicated an interest in these issues and we welcome that.” 
There has been some momentum to adopt Wyoming’s regulatory framework at a national level. 
Earlier this month, Hester Peirce — commissioner for the United States Securities and Exchange Commission — said the agency’s existing regulatory framework needed to be updated in order to accommodate the more progressive regulations of states like Wyoming. 
The issue arose earlier this year in a disagreement between the SEC and the Wyoming Banking Division over what types of entities were qualified to bank with cryptocurrency. 
“I absolutely think we need new rules,” Peirce said in an interview earlier this month.