The New York Times: The benefits of letting Bitcoin thrive

We know that over the years, the world economy has prospered thanks to technological innovations that have enabled people to interact more easily and quickly.

Consumers have benefited greatly from new products and services that have made life cheaper and better in recent years. Email has become incredibly fast and connected. Ride-sharing services connect drivers and passengers more quickly and cheaply. Massive open online courses, like MOOCs, connect students and professors across borders. What all of these tools have in common is that they are direct peer-to-peer connections and give entrepreneurs the tools to take control of and improve their lives.

Innovation in finance has not always been seen as a good thing. In fact, after the financial crisis, the prevailing view was that most financial innovations were dangerous, like derivatives trading. However, in recent years, Bitcoin has proven to be a financial platform that continues the tradition of the Internet, giving people the power to interact directly while providing a stage for entrepreneurs to innovate.

For example, the Simple Message Text Protocol (SMTP) allows messages to be sent and received around the world at a fraction of the cost of traditional postal delivery; Bitcoin allows value to be exchanged around the world in the same seamless way. Think of it as digital cash or "money email."

Bitcoin’s positive impact is clearest when it comes to international money transfers. Today, the cost of moving money around the world is almost 8%, largely due to a complex web of third-party services. With Bitcoin and its public ledger, expensive middlemen are no longer necessary. But this obvious benefit is only the beginning of Bitcoin’s story.

Just like the Internet is growing bigger and bigger, Bitcoin is also a global open system. Anyone with a computer and an Internet connection can access the network and participate in Bitcoin. This is the greatest potential of Bitcoin.

Just as the Internet was able to grow and thrive by limiting the hands of governments at the underlying protocol level, so should Bitcoin.

Year after year, Bitcoin has sat on the fringes of the technological landscape while its developers and users worked to improve its functionality and expand its boundaries. Now, Bitcoin startups and the larger digital currency ecosystem have entered the mainstream, receiving large venture capital investments from the New York Stock Exchange, A16Z, Goldman Sachs and others, Nasdaq is experimenting with trading assets on the blockchain, and Citigroup is reportedly developing its own digital currency.

Recently, the New York Stock Exchange began to generate a real-time price index to track the price of Bitcoin based on data provided by Coinbase. Coinbase is an industry-leading Bitcoin platform and the first compliant Bitcoin exchange in the United States. Due to its commitment to transparency, security and compliance, Coinbase has become the first choice for many transactions in the Bitcoin market.

As in other areas, we have to struggle and balance between good regulation that protects and promotes progress and bad regulation that stifles innovation and economic development. Platforms like Coinbase have already taken strong safeguards required by third parties, such as the New York Stock Exchange, and have made commitments to consumer protection and security.

And imposing onerous regulations on Bitcoin wallet platforms in order to eliminate illegal applications will not fundamentally solve any problems. The only result of such regulation is that Bitcoin wallets will become increasingly difficult to serve legitimate actors who simply want to take advantage of technological advances to facilitate frictionless transactions between parties.

Such an outcome would be tragic, especially when you consider that the Bitcoin industry is exploding with millions of regular users and a lot of untapped potential. Bitcoin will lead to a cultural shift, a more international market, and new business models.

For policymakers, it is essential to make full considerations and balances when taking effective regulatory measures against platforms. For example, government regulators should continue to focus on the connection between physical and digital currencies, and should not take any measures to try to modify or regulate the underlying protocol of Bitcoin.

Meaningful and relaxed rules that create necessary security protections for users are a beneficial aid to the evolution of the Bitcoin ecosystem, but we must not inadvertently stifle growth and innovation for the sake of regulation. Stifling is a burden that Bitcoin cannot bear.

迈克尔·贝克曼is the president and CEO of the Internet Association, a U.S. political lobbying group made up of Internet industry members. The group claims to represent "America's leading Internet companies and their global user communities" and is "committed to advancing public policy solutions that strengthen and protect Internet freedom and promote innovation and economic growth."