Nobel winning economist faces off against Crypto Lawyer in front of Congress
Peter Van Valkenburgh, a lawyer and Director of Research at CoinCenter, appeared before Congress to defend the cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology against Nobel-winning economist Nouriel Roubini and his insistence on the danger of the technology. Taking place before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Community Affairs (the Committee), Van Valkenburgh acclaimed Bitcoin as a “revolutionary” technology for its ability to securely act as a public payment processing system in an age of increasingly prevalent cybercrime. Roubini, in turn, used cybercrime as a prime example of the dangers of cryptocurrency, claiming 99% of transactions occur on centralized exchanged that are being attacked nearly every second of every day.
Idaho Senator Mike Crapo, Chair of the Committee, said the idea of the testimony was to help regulators “sort through the static.” Roubini has been notoriously sour towards the blockchain world, while Van Valkenburgh, in response to a question asking if the world was better off because of blockchain, was able to offer an example of a woman in Afghanistan (where men generally control financial matters) paying female employees with Bitcoin.
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