Unlike his congressional counterparts, Colorado Democrat, Jared Polis, is not scrambling or scratching his head in an attempt to figure out how to deal with nascent cryptocurrencies.
Instead, he’s urging Congress to witness the promising technology in action by inviting Robocoin to demonstrate exactly how their first-of-its-kind Bitcoin ATM operates in the real world.
In an official announcement release by Mr. Polis, he states:
“You are cordially invited to a demonstration of Robocoin, the world’s first Bitcoin kiosk for buying and selling the popular and controversial digital currency. Come see a Robocoin demo, hear a brief Bitcoin talk from Congressman Jared Polis, try buying Bitcoin yourself and ask your burning Bitcoin questions. This will be fun, plus you’ll see how Robocoin is raising the bar on KYC / AML compliance in Bitcoin. Welcome to the future of anti-fraud, anti-identify theft and anti-money laundering – this is customer protection built for the 21st century.”
The presentation is scheduled for this upcoming Tuesday, April 8 from 4:00pm to 7:00pm at the Raymond House Office Building.
Interestingly enough, Techcrunch reported yesterday that this information is not entirely correct. Apparently, Polis did not actually invite the startup company as stated by a representative from the Congressman’s office according to Betabeat. What happened, in fact, was that Polis only procured a showroom for the demonstration in Washington DC as the company was organizing the event.
In any case, Mr. Polis appears to be one of the few voices in Congress favoring digital currencies, even going so far as writing a satirical letter in urging a ban on the ‘dangerous’ US dollar in response to Senator Joe Manchin who demanded a federal ban on bitcoins in response to accusations of cryptocurrencies being used for criminal activities.
This is exactly why this type of presentation is crucial as it can shift the view of policy-makers from the perception of Bitcoin as an enabler of money laundering and other criminal activities to a more legitimate means of exchange that is secure, frictionless and completely transparent. Evidence of this can be seen as more and more people are even paying their taxes using Bitcoin.
