Former Senate Adviser Joins Coinbase Team

The New York Times reports that San Francisco-based Coinbase has a new addition to their team of employees, and he’s John Collins, a previous adviser to the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee.

His role at Coinbase — which provides both consumers and businesses with bitcoin-related services — will come as no shock: head of government affairs. And given his credentials, he’s probably a good choice.

At the company, Collins will be working with both lawmakers and public officials. Topics of discussion? You probably already guessed it. His job is to work with said lawmakers and public officials on policy decisions.

As bitcoin’s popularity increases, the times become more challenging for businesses who wish to remain compliant with existing regulations. Compliance with existing regulations (we are dealing with a new type of money, after all) is a challenge, so the idea is to put in place sensible rules together.

New York State officials are working to do just this with a proposal out now for public comments, though their plans have been met with resistance from parts of the community who feel their regulations are cumbersome and counter-intuitive.

And for consumers, the topic of regulation is still very much surrounded in a thick layer of fog. The Internal Revenue Service here in the United States has previously issued a guidance on the matter, though the way they have gone about it shows they still don’t understand the properties of this digital currency.

Will Collins help change things for the better? Time will most certainly tell.