US Senator Resolution Encourages Capitol Gift Shops to Accept Cryptocurrencies – Regulation

A US lawmaker has introduced a resolution encouraging Capitol gift shops to accept cryptocurrency payments. He emphasized that lawmakers should “improve accessibility and signal our support for the burgeoning cryptocurrency industry to those who visit Capitol Hill.”

US Senator advocates crypto payments

U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) announced Thursday that he has reintroduced the Adopting Cryptocurrency in Congress as an Exchange of Payment for Transactions (ACCEPT) resolution. Cruz presented for the first time this resolution in November 2021. The senator from Texas said:

Cryptocurrency creates new jobs, encourages entrepreneurs to invent new values, creates new hedges against inflation and offers new opportunities. It is also increasingly being used as a secure means of payment for goods and services.

“That's exactly why we should improve accessibility here at the United States Capitol and signal our support for the burgeoning cryptocurrency industry to those who visit Capitol Hill,” he added.

Senator Cruz stated that his bill would “require the Architect of the Capitol, the Secretary of the Senate, and the Chief Administrative Officer of the House of Representatives to encourage Capitol gift shops to accept cryptocurrencies as payment.” They would also have to “contract with vendors that accept cryptocurrencies as payment for meals and in vending machines within the Capitol complex.”

Cruz further said:

An additional benefit of using cryptocurrency as a form of payment at the Capitol is that it provides foreign tourists who visit our nation's capital each year with a secure payment option without having to pay unnecessary and often costly exchange fees.

The lawmaker has long been a pro-Bitcoin senator. In May last year he said he was “ incredibly bullish " on Bitcoin. "I have a weekly purchase that is an automatic weekly purchase of Bitcoin because I believe in dollar-cost averaging," he noted at the time.

Senator Cruz also introduced a bill on this in April last year ban the Federal Reserve from developing a direct-to-consumer central bank digital currency (CBDC) “that could be used by the federal government as a financial surveillance tool, similar to what is currently happening in China,” Cruz noted.

What do you think about Senator Ted Cruz pushing for gift shops on Capitol Hill to accept cryptocurrency payments? Let us know in the comments section below.

Kevin Helms

As a student of Austrian economics, Kevin discovered Bitcoin in 2011 and has been an evangelist ever since. His interests lie in Bitcoin security, open source systems, network effects, and the interface between economics and cryptography.

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