by Dakota Gordon
The U.S. financial system is not working for too many Americans. We see it every day at the gas pump and grocery store with record-high inflation. We see it with empty store shelves and higher rents. We see it with high fees and slow transactions at the big banks – the same ones we taxpayers bailed out a little more than a decade ago.
There’s an alternative that can help these systemic problems: cryptocurrency.
Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and others represent the first real alternative people have when it comes to issues like banking, payments, and asset management. These advances have the potential to create new and better economic systems, with more privacy and less government interference than the current status quo.
Digital assets are popular with the public. Roughly 1 in 5 Americans have used or invested in crypto, a number that is just increasing each year. The crypto economy offers the promise of more ownership, control, and freedom for individuals when it comes to our financial future. And crypto is a real alternative for those of us who want a different way of controlling and managing our own money. It serves as a bridge for those who have been left out of the traditional financial system but want to work hard and invest in their own and their families’ future.
Over the past few generations, too many Americans have unfortunately slid into a culture of financial dependence, with low financial literacy rates and increasing welfare programs. Crypto incentivizes consumers to take ownership of their financial decisions and promotes engagement in the financial system. That’s exactly what a free-market American economy should be promoting.
The technology behind crypto can have a real impact across all parts of the economy – for entrepreneurs, small businesses, start-ups, nonprofits, and more. Normalizing cryptocurrency as a more regular part of our financial experience will reawaken the American spirit of innovation, competition, and success.
The United States has been at the forefront of every major technological innovation of the Information Age. We should not take our foot off the gas now. If we cede the future of finance to other countries, we put our own national and economic security at serious risk. China was an early investor into cryptocurrencies and continues to grow its presence in the space. Given the Chinese Communist Party’s overt antagonism towards the United States and our allies, we should not settle for matching the Chinese in the crypto world – we should seek to surpass them. Crypto isn’t just an issue for the tech savvy, it’s an issue of critical importance to the United States’ national security in the 21st century.
We need our federal delegation in Tennessee to support common-sense policies that will allow the innovative cryptocurrency sector to grow and flourish. Tennessee’s U.S. Senators Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty are primed to be national leaders on crypto policy, with seats on the powerful Senate Judiciary and Banking Committees, respectively. Both also recognize the very real threat the Communist Chinese Party poses to the United States and should similarly recognize crypto as a valuable tool to help us fight back. I’m confident our Senators will continue to be champions of free-market American exceptionalism and stand firmly on the side of innovation and competition by supporting pro-cypto policies in Congress.
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Dakota Gordon is the executive director for Better Tomorrow in Tennessee, a non-partisan non-profit organization that promotes limited government.
