New Crypto Nevada Bill - Reps Protests

New Crypto and Blockchain Nevada Bill- Reps Protests

The State of Nevada issued a new bill to control the activities of the cryptocurrency and blockchain industries. However, on Tuesday, the representatives of the industries in question raised concerns about it. During the judiciary hearing on March 12th, the reps voiced their reasons for not seeing the bill as appropriate. According to them, the timing of the bill is not right because the industries are still trying to grow.

We learned that the judicial bill, SB 195 aims at introducing uniform standards to guide the operations of the industries. It will specifically require every business handling cryptocurrencies to register with the Department of Business and Industry in the State of Nevada. The implication is that every crypto exchange platform and others must register with the department before operating in the State.

The regulation covering the bill is the “Uniform Regulation of Virtual-Currency Businesses Act” The Senator James Ohrenschal of the Democratic Party supported the bill, and the Uniform Law Commission put it forward. This uniform standards from the Senator is in a bid to provide consistent regulations guiding the crypto and blockchain industries.  

The hearing Proceedings

During the hearing, James Ohrenschall informed the reps that other versions of the same bill are existing in other States. According to the Senator, States such as Oklahoma, Hawaii, and California are affected by the bill as well.

After explaining the bill in the committee hearing, the reps from the blockchain and crypto industries protested against the bill. Under the umbrella of the “Nevada Technology Association” argued that the time for introducing the bill is not now. Their reason was that it will put the State at a disadvantage since the industry is still trying to grow. The association continued to protest that such a bill with various regulations on an evolving technology will cause harm.  

Reactions following the bill

Many big shots in the crypto and blockchain industries have reacted seriously to the new bill. Matt Digesti who works at a company called Blockchain LLC argued against the process through which the ULC followed. He pointed out that the Commission did not consult any of the parties while drafting the bill.  No representative of the blockchain or Cryptocurrency industry took part during the process.

Another director at Filament, a blockchain firm also made a statement about the new regulations. Wendy Stolyarov said that the bill would unknowingly place the industry as money transmitters. The reason being that they create hardware wallet which enables autonomous transaction from one machine to another.

Meanwhile, the bill is at its early stage in the legislative lifecycle. Since it came out in the middle of February, there is still time for any amendment to occur. As for the results of the hearing, there was no action yet against the bill. From what the public records show, there hasn’t been any amendment on it either.

We can recall that in early 2019, the Associated Press discovered some uses of blockchain in Nevada.  Some of the countries were using the Ethereum blockchain to issue marriage certificates. Although the tech supposedly improved the process, it is not accepted fully in all the government agencies.