American politician and Republican Party member Cynthia Lummis was elected to the US Senate from the state of Wyoming. Lummis is a Bitcoin supporter and first acquired the cryptocurrency in 2013.
The senator learned about Bitcoin from her son-in-law, the product director of crypto-finance company Unchained Capital, while being a member of the House of Representatives at the time. According to Fortune magazine, after her ascension to the Senate in January 2021, she will become the first-ever member of the upper house of Congress with crypto assets. So far, members of the House of Representatives, including former chairman of the legal committee, Bob Goodlatte, have reportedly been invested in cryptocurrency, but not an active politician in the Senate.
The state of Lummis, Wyoming, has passed a number of legislations in recent years to boost the cryptocurrency industry and recently issued the first banking license for a crypto company, namely the Kraken exchange.
Caitlin Long, CEO of Avanti Financial, the second newly licensed crypto bank in the state, expects Lummis to advocate for the industry in the Senate:
“In the Wyoming fashion, we are sending a person to Washington who respects individual rights, especially the right to preserve the fruits of labor. Cynthia believes in the philosophy of Bitcoin, not just because it is a new profitable asset class. ”
Neeraj Agrawal of Coin Centre, a non-profit organization, believes that there is no need to expect dramatic changes in the attitude of Congress towards the cryptocurrency space anytime soon. That said, he hopes that in the coming years, lawmakers will find an opportunity to pay attention to the industry, not least at the suggestion of a new senator.
