U.S. Rep. William Timmons opened a subcommittee roundtable examining how decentralized digital assets can help people living under repressive governments access information and financial freedom.
Based on a release from U.S. Rep. William Timmons (SC-04).
WASHINGTON — U.S. Rep. William Timmons, R-S.C., chairman of the House Subcommittee on Military and Foreign Affairs, opened a roundtable Thursday titled “Two Sides of a Digital Coin: Protecting U.S. Security by Challenging the Power of Repressive Foreign Regimes,” according to the office of Rep. Timmons.
In his opening remarks, Timmons said decentralized digital assets can empower people living under authoritarian rule and provide pathways to accessing suppressed information, according to his office.
“Bitcoin and decentralized technologies represent a profound challenge to authoritarian control,” Timmons said, according to his office. “When a regime can no longer control its citizens’ access to information or money, what do you have left?”
Timmons also said it is critical for the United States to maintain leadership in developing and regulating digital assets, warning that the Chinese Communist Party intends to shape global standards around state-controlled digital currency and surveillance-based financial systems, according to his office.
“Ensuring that democratic nations — not repressive regimes — set the norms for digital finance is essential to both our national security and the protection of individual liberty around the world,” Timmons said, according to his office.
The roundtable, described as an informal discussion rather than a standard hearing, included four participants, according to Timmons’ office. They were Dustin Palmer, Bank Secrecy Act Officer at Anchorage Digital Bank; Jorge Jraissati, president of the Economic Inclusion Group; Cody Carbone, chief executive officer of The Digital Chamber; and Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette, acting vice president of policy and government affairs for the Project on Government Oversight.
Timmons said he hoped to hear from panelists on how the technologies are being used, where U.S. policy is helping or hindering progress, and what Congress can do to strengthen global freedom and American security, according to his office.
