The cryptocurrency world has been marred by the criminal activities of a few who would seek to carve out their own fortunes rather than build something bigger. That’s not the original vision of Bitcoin, and as Bitcoin Association Founding President Jimmy Nguyen told the crowd at the Expo-Bitcoin International 2019 in Bogota, Colombia, Bitcoin SV is fighting for a better regulated industry to protect consumers.
As Nguyen showed, the digital currency industry needs better protections against the foolishness and criminality of even once respected businesses. QuadrigaCX is the perfect example of this. Deceased founder Gerald Cotten was once a respected member of the Canadian cryptocurrency scene, but as the exchange failed, stories of improperly handled private keys and mismanagement of user funds proved that a lack of regulations had failed Canadians.
“Things like this have been happening in the cryptocurrency world and that’s why some people are afraid of it,” Nguyen noted. “It’s why some governments are afraid of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency.” (6:13)
As Founding President of the Bitcoin Association, Jimmy Nguyen and Bitcoin’s creator Dr. Craig Wright are trying to make a difference in this area by encouraging world governments to firm up regulations. “Yesterday Craig Wright and I had the fortune, thanks to Boris, to speak before Craig spoke before the Council of Bogota,” Nguyen explained, “and we spoke with other government officials and we talked to him about the need of creating a lawful environment because we don’t want this to happen to people if you’re going to invest in or use cryptocurrency you want to feel that it’s safe.” (6:20)
To explain how deep this problem goes, Nguyen told the story of Bitfinex and Tether. Through Tether’s stablecoin, which has been proven can be printed with nearly nothing to back its value, the price of SegWitCoin (BTC) has soared on exchanges like Bitfinex. To protect this criminal manipulation of the markets, BTC supporters have argued for the anonymity of cryptocurrency, which misleads the world into believing that’s what Bitcoin offers. As Nguyen told the Bogota crowd, that’s just not true:
“If you create a completely anonymous system of money, do you know what happens? People use it for illegal things. They use it for terrorists and criminals. Is that what we want? It’s not what we want and it’s not what Craig created Bitcoin for. So that’s why Bitcoin SV (BSV) is not only the only blockchain that’s pursuing the original Satoshi Vision created by Craig Wright, is pursuing a vision to mass scaling, huge blocks for huge business for fast transactions all over the world, but we are building an environment that is regulation, government, and business friendly.” (12:02)
To accomplish BSV’s regulatory friendly goals, it seeks to promote privacy, not anonymity. It encourages Money Services Businesses (MSBs) to follow all know your customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML) laws. Through Tokenized, it looks to implement tokens based on real-world assets, compliant with all securities regulations. It sheds relationships with bucket shop crypto exchanges in favor of utility based exchanges like Float SV, who practice proper oversight to protect investors. Finally, unlike Tether, it only associates with stablecoin tokens with verifiable, auditable backed up assets.
Using proper regulation and supervision, BSV looks to embrace the laws of the land, through which it can gain the public’s confidence and realize mass adoption. “Bitcoin is sunlight. It’s not darkness,” Nguyen noted. “It’s a blockchain, a public, record keeping system which anyone should be able to look at, and while your name may not be attached to it, the history of transactions, the history of records is something that is meant to provide more truth to the world.” (32:58)
Nguyen concludes:
“And that’s the final thought I will you on. Bitcoin is about truth. It’s about providing more truth to the world and it’s providing all of the users of it, people in this room like you, we hope one day four billion people around the world more financial power over their own lives, more financial services, and the truth of a Bitcoin currency and blockchain that brings sunlight to the world.” (36:18)
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