It's not often you'll hear me say positive things about a U.S. government regulator, but I nearly fell out of my seat when I heard what the Chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), Christopher Giancarlo, said at today's hearing with the Congressional Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.
In case you missed it, here's his opening statement:
Other than widespread fascination over its meteoric price rise, much of the discussion around Bitcoin in 2017 has revolved around questions over the future direction of the protocol, most specifically the highly charged scaling debate and the implementation of SegWit. With the forthcoming fight over the 2x part of SegWit2x, the blocksize issue remains unsettled and the community will stay firmly focused on this over the coming months, as it should.
The historical space available for Americans to engage in public protest has been declining for many years, and is a topic I covered on several occasions during the Obama administration. For instance in the post, The War on Free Speech – U.S. Department of Justice Subpoenas Reason.com Over Comment Section, I noted:
