Crypto giants Ripple whose token is ranked third by market capitalization is at it again. This time leading a group of crypto startups to lobby lawmakers and financial regulators in the United States capital to throw their weight behind blockchain, and crypto innovation. This is according to a Bloomberg report which further stated that a group of crypto firms based in San Francisco were planning to hire the services of Klein/Johnson group. The Klein/Johnson group is a bipartisan lobby group that will be given the mandate of assisting the crypto and blockchain community in conveying to regulators that the industry was in dire need of support from the government.
The coalition of crypto firms who are the under the new umbrella known as the “securing america’s internet of value coalition “ will aim to loosen the strings fastened by the government when it comes to their attitude towards cryptocurrency. When the government’s stance is softened, they believe it would promote innovation and foster competition in the crypto space which would lead to exponential growth in the industry. The coalition will work together with the lobby group in order to push their case to congress as well as the countries topmost financial regulatory body, the securities and exchange commission (SEC). other audiences of interest to them are the internal revenue service (IRS) and other agencies that have something to do with crypto currencies.
According to the preliminary deal the Fintech lobby group will reportedly receive around 25,000 dollars a month and 10,000 dollars in Ripple (XRP) from the coalition which seeks to marshall its agenda over the line. The company plans to convert the XRP into dollars by the time it discloses the payments on federal lobbying forms. The coalition will also feature crypto investment company, Yaka as well as crypto startup, Polysign. This is a start up set to launch a crypto custodian. Ripple executive chairman Chris Larsen said that there was a lot of interest in crypto currency in DC despite the uncertainity and clouds of complication around the issue among government agencies and industry regulators.
The lobbying efforts come after the increased attention of Congress and other agencies like the SEC towards crypto currencies. Following the lobbying efforts, a group of lawmakers in Congress sent a letter to the SEC, petitioning the regulatory body to provide clarity when it comes to the issue of regulating cryptocurrencies. Specifically, lawmakers asked the SEC to confirm if whether the digital tokens can be identified as a security or not.
