Cryptocurrency companies form Texas blockchain group to advocate for clear regulations

According to a Sept. 11 release, a consortium of crypto and blockchain firms have joined forces to form a Texas crypto advocacy group. The organization is known as the “Crypto Freedom Alliance of Texas,” and it was created by a16z crypto, Coinbase, Ledger, Bain Capital Crypto, Blockchain Capital, and Paradigm. The organization advocates for “the development of coherent and predictable regulations for digital assets in Texas.”

The Crypto Freedom Alliance will support educational activities aimed at government officials, corporations, non-profits, and other organizations to showcase the benefits of Web3 in the state of Texas, according to the release. Cointelegraph spoke with a16z crypto’s global head of policy, Brian Quintenz, at the Permissionless II conference in Austin to learn more about the new organization. Texas, according to Quintenz, is especially positioned to become a refuge for Web3 developers, but this requires the formation of an advocacy group to address difficulties in the state.

Quintenz, for example, suggested that decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) frequently require legal jurisdiction to function. Texas is an appealing state since it has adopted the Uniform Code of Unincorporated Associations. “Modifying unincorporated association law to apply more broadly to limited liability types of entities is a state issue,” Quintenz explained. “There are only a few states that have adopted the Uniform Code of Unincorporated Associations Texas is one of them.” To allow DAOs to be recognized as legal entities, small changes would need to be made to this code: “One of the things we continue to try to do is advocate and educate around creating a legal entity for DAOs that makes some changes to the unincorporated association framework but makes it more restrictive.” We don’t want to just hand it over to anyone and say, ‘Oh, I’m a DAO.’ 

Quintenz stated that, in addition to campaigning for reforms to unincorporated organization laws, the group would also advocate for crypto-friendly tax legislation, bank charter laws, and bank regulations. Wyoming’s bank charter regulations, he said, were “a positive example” of what crypto-friendly governments may do. There is no doubt that Texas is one of the most renowned crypto-mining locations in the United States. The majority of Genesis Digital Assets’ CPUs are manufactured in Texas. The crypto mining firm Hut8 relocated 6,400 mining computers to the state on July 3.

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