{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.carper.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/news-clips?ContentRecord_id=2e8620cb-a991-4da3-add3-403318432a35", "The New Yorker: Why Regulate Bitcoin?", "2013-11-18", "2013", "2013-11", "Democrat", "House", "DE", "Thomas Carper", "C000174", "www.carper.senate.gov", null, null, "legacy", "\u201cWe do not think that it is in anyone\u2019s best interest for digital currency to become an offshore industry or an industry dominated by China,\u201d said Jeremy Allaire, the founder of a startup called Circle Internet Financial, in written testimony provided as part of his appearance, on Monday, at a hearing by the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs on the risks and benefits of digital currencies such as Bitcoin. He and other U.S. entrepreneurs are right to be concerned about their role in the growing market for digital currency\u2014that is, bits of code that function like cash and can be exchanged over the Internet. About a third of the world\u2019s bitcoin transactions now flow through a single exchange, BTC China, which is open only to Chinese users, according to Bitcoin Charts, a Web site that provides bitcoin data. BTC China recently unseated the Tokyo-based Mt. Gox as the world\u2019s largest exchange by trading volume.\r\nRecently, the exchange value of the cryptocurrency has climbed, a trend that continued Monday after news broke that BTC China had\u00a0raised five million dollars of investment capital. By one o\u2019clock on Tuesday morning in Beijing, the value of a single bitcoin had hit a record of nearly four thousand three hundred yuan, or about seven hundred dollars.\r\n\u201cThe main reason Bitcoin has become big in China is because Chinese people are savers, and more people are seeing Bitcoin as a way to store and invest their money,\u201d Linke Yang, the vice-president of BTC China,\u00a0told Agence France-Presse\u00a0on Friday at Bitcoin Singapore, a conference on the cryptocurrency.\r\nThere are other reasons. Last month, Baidu, an Internet company that operates the most popular search engine in China, began accepting bitcoins for some services offered by its subsidiary Jiasule. Also, Chinese people who chafe at strict government control of the yuan may see bitcoins as a way to speculate on currencies.\r\nIt may come as a surprise, given China\u2019s tight regulations on businesses and Bitcoin\u2019s subversive potential, that the Chinese government has not stepped in to regulate it. Instead, the television station CCTV and the newspaper\u00a0People\u2019s Daily\u2014both state-run media outlets\u2014ran positive reports on Bitcoin this past summer. The Chinese enthusiasm for digital currency has continued despite a fraud case involving Global Bond Limited, a bitcoin-trading platform that shut its doors abruptly last month, allegedly taking more than four million dollars of investor money along with it.\r\nIt\u2019s unclear how regulations for digital currencies might evolve in the U.S. Lawmakers haven\u2019t been very specific, and a staffer for Senator Tom Carper, who is chairing the hearing, told me that the senator\u2019s office is taking a neutral stance on virtual currency for the time being. One concern, she said, is that overzealous legislative action could drive innovation in financial services to other countries.\r\nIt\u2019s worth pointing out that the U.S. hasn\u2019t ever really been at the center of the Bitcoin world. It\u2019s unclear\u00a0who invented Bitcoin\u00a0and where that person\u2014or people\u2014came from. It will surely move forward with or without American investment. None of the top three exchanges are based in the United States: along with BTC China and Mt. Gox, there is Bitstamp, which is located in Slovenia.\r\nWhat\u2019s more, many observers believe Bitcoin will prove to be most beneficial in the developing world, where it can provide a kind of currency immune to government manipulation and can bring billions of people without access to traditional financial services\u2014the so-called unbanked\u2014into the global economy. The proponents of digital currencies include Ernie Allen, the president and C.E.O. of the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children, who said in his testimony, \u201cWe believe that the digital economy can achieve social good, particularly in bringing about real financial inclusion for the 2.5 billion adults on the planet today without access to banks, credit cards, or the mainstream financial system.\u201d\r\nAllen has another reason for wanting to see the U.S. take the lead in digital currency: he is worried about how digital currencies are used on the \u201cdark web\u201d\u2014that is, the growing network of illicit Web sites, accessible only with software that masks user identities, used for commercial child pornography, sex trafficking, and other criminal enterprises. He indicated that a \u201cdraconian\u201d federal response would make digital money the preserve of criminals, and will drive activity \u201coutside the United States to countries where there is little or no regulation.\u201d\r\nThere may, however, be good cause for regulation. There have been several high-profile thefts of bitcoins recently, including a hacker attack last week on a Czech exchange called Bitcash.cz that emptied four thousand digital wallets belonging to customers. Also this month, an eighteen-year-old man in Australia who was running a Bitcoin \u201cbank\u201d announced that more than four thousand bitcoins had been stolen from his Web site, most of them belonging to users. In any industry, one of the strongest arguments in favor of regulation is the need for consumer protection\u2014something bitcoin currently lacks.\r\nMonday\u2019s hearing also included representatives of the U.S. Justice Department, the Secret Service, and the Treasury Department\u2019s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. They see cryptocurrencies as less of a miraculous technology than a twenty-first-century headache for law enforcement. Still, the application of existing laws to digital currencies may be enough to assuage their concerns. \u201cExploitation by malicious actors is a problem faced by all types of financial services, and is not unique to virtual currency systems,\u201d Mythili Raman, the acting assistant attorney general of the Justice Department\u2019s criminal division, said in her testimony. \u201cA convertible virtual currency with appropriate anti-money-laundering and know-your-customer controls, as required by U.S. law, can safeguard its system from exploitation by criminals and terrorists in the same way any other money-services business could.\u201d", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.carper.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/news-clips?ContentRecord_id=2e8620cb-a991-4da3-add3-403318432a35"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.8225641213357449, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}