In a recent interview, U.S. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said lawmakers should not ignore bitcoin, but understand its future role.
While many regulators around the world hope to deny the growing importance of Bitcoin to their economies and the world at large, some in the United States have realized that the decentralized asset can no longer be ignored.
This sentiment was shared by the Republican leader of the U.S. House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, who recently told CNBC that the country’s policy makers should no longer ignore Bitcoin, but embrace it.
“They tried to ignore it to make it go away,” McCarthy said of frequent Bitcoin critics like U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen and CEO of JPMorgan Chase Jamie Dimon. “They should not ignore it… This is something that those who regulate, those who are in government that make policy, better start understanding what it means for the future because other countries are moving forward, especially China. I do not want America to fall behind. I want the next century to be ours, that’s why I want to look forward, not backwards and keep my head in the sand.”
This recent statement by McCarthy is yet another recent indication of Bitcoin’s growing importance to the financial sector. The asset is being adopted by both retailers and institutions alike due to its ability to serve as a payment method and also as a viable hedge against inflation.
More U.S. lawmakers, like McCarthy and Senator Cynthia Lummis, appear to be recognizing the fact that Bitcoin is an inevitable movement that cannot be tempered by regulation. As the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s Hester Peirce recently articulated, lawmakers cannot ban Bitcoin (though they can make it difficult to utilize). That means that embracing it and creating an environment in which the U.S. can thrive as Bitcoin grows is the superior option.