What Happened at Yesterday's Senate Hearing on Bitcoin

Simon Black reports:

Senator Tom Carper (Delaware) is confused about Bitcoin. 

As Chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, this is how Carper framed his opening remarks yesterday at a hearing about digital currencies-- with complete, incoherent confusion.

Carper's hearing went on for several hours as one witness after another testified about the potential evils of digital currencies. They hailed from agencies and organizations like:

• The Homeland Security committee
• Criminal Division of the US Attorney General's Office
• US Secret Service Criminal Investigative Division
• The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network
• The International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children  

Based on the way they stacked the witness list, the message they're sending is clear: digital currencies like Bitoin equate to crime, terrorism, and child exploitation. 

But the height of absurdity in yesterday's hearing probably came during the testimony from the testimony from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), in which the agency's chief cited the BENEFITS of digital currencies, including:

• anonymity
• simple, easy to navigate
• lower fees than the conventional financial system
• globally accessible
• can be used as both a store of value and medium of exchange
•  security

etc.

Yet in listing all of these benefits, FinCEN's chief was actually trying to make a case AGAINST Bitcoin! In her mind, only criminal terrorists want low-fee, secure, globally accessible money.

All of these politicians and bureaucrats can't wait to get their arms around digital currency to regulate the hell out of it. They don't understand it... therefore they think it's dangerous. 

Simon Black is Senior Editor  at SovereignMan.com. Follow Sovereign Man on Facebook, Twitter, Google+