United States Congressman Tom Emmer has spoken on XRP token and Yam DeFi, focusing on the importance of cryptocurrency and blockchain at large.
The congressman, a delegate from Minnesota, during the first hosted “Cryptocurrency Town Hall,” mentioned that he will accept cryptocurrency donations for his next election campaign through BitPay.
The glorious event which was made possible through the help of the PAC (political action committee) of the Chamber of Digital Commerce featured Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse, BitPay CEO Stephan Pair, eToro CEO Guy Hirsch, and a host of other crypto bigwigs.
Emmer suggested that the US lead in innovating different ideas in the blockchain industry, mentioning that lots of ideas happened in the cryptocurrency industry recently.
He, therefore, advised cryptocurrency experts not to leave Washington politicians to acting anyhow, but to keep on advising them on the adoption of blockchain technology because they are usually able to keep up with technological developments.
The congressman said the senators and representatives cannot be as knowledgeable as crypto experts because they are faced with different challenges that cut across diverse sectors.
“We [congressmen] need to engage with you, myself and every one of my colleagues in the house of representatives and on the other side of the building in the senate …in the executive branch, we need your advice, we need to be educated by you,” he said, adding that they must take a little time to learn about cryptocurrency and a host of other ideas in the blockchain space.
Emmer spoke lengthily about DeFi where he mentioned the surprise of creating traditional financial instruments that are not being overseen by either governments or companies.
The congressman also noted how the advent of stablecoins brought hope into the financial industry.
He also spoke about the recent YAM token saga where the price of the token, within few days of launch, rose to $180, and within a short time, precisely on August 12th, “gave the project an instant 460 million in market cap.”
The Minnesota representative said the YAM token, despite been an “experimental protocol,” was able to generate a half a billion dollars within a week.
Ripple’s Brad Garlinghouse was also given the opportunity to speak at the event. During the time, the crypto expert spoke on what Ripple is doing.
Brad said Ripple has been around since the early days of crypto, and collaborating with financial institutions to solve a real problems around global payments.
The CEO of Ripple mentioned that tens of trillions of dollars are being used in cross-border payments annually, creating the internet of value, however, makes it easy for those funds to be moved in the same way information is being moved over the internet.
He said the advent of XRP makes it easy to move funds in a cheap, fast and seamless manner, lamenting that assets beyond Bitcoin and Ethereum are being defined by the Security and Exchange Commissions without a regulatory framework.
Brad promised to donate to Emmer’s political moves during the election using XRP token.
Emmer mentioned after Brad’s speech that he loves XRP since it abolishes intermediary, however, the network is being affected by the lack of regulatory clarity. Interestingly, he said XRP is not a security and should not be seen as such.
“My position is very clear, XRP is not a security,” the congressman said.