A group of respected cryptocurrency companies has enlisted the help of the Klein/Johnson Group to help lobby Congress to encourage lawmakers to clarify specific regulations regarding cryptocurrency. Klein/Johnson has represented globally-known clients such as the American multinational company Oracle in the past, as well as retail pharmacy company CVS Health.
The companies have formed a coalition called “Securing America’s Internet of Value Coalition”. The coalition includes companies like Coil, created by Stefan Thomas, a former CTO at Ripple, that aims to enter the micropayments space and Polysign, a startup that seeks to dominate the crypto custodian industry. However, the clear leader of the group is the digital money transfer company Ripple. The CEO of Ripple, Chris Larsen, elaborated that while the issues were complicated, “there is a lot of interest in D.C.” about the topic in general.
The coalition hopes to explain to policymakers that cryptocurrencies such as Ripple have the ability to make payments more efficient than ever, enabling them to be instantaneous in cases where it would otherwise take days to settle. Ripple has already partnered with leading money transfer companies, as well as respected banks.
The coalition has agreed to not only pay Klein/Johnson $25,000 a month, but an additional 10,000 XRP monthly, which according to data from CryptoCompare is worth $5,732 at press time. Larsen believes that this helps give the firm some “skin in the game”, and will help “give them a taste of the industry”. Klein has stated that he plans on converting the XRP to dollars for tax purposes shortly.
The SEC has already ruled that Bitcoin and Ether are not securities, and therefore are not subject to any SEC regulation – but have not made any meaningful decision when it comes to Ripple. It is understood that Klein/Johnson will help to ensure that the fintech firms can innovate in a meaningful fashion while still abiding by clear regulations that lawmakers will eventually set forth.
