North Carolina Bitcoin Law Arrives with Side-Effects, Experts Say

Recent North Carolina Bitcoin law is a step in the right direction, leaving room for improvement but may arrive with its own side-effects.

On July 6 2016, the Governor of North Carolina, Pat McCrory, signed a long-debated Bitcoin bill into law. This bill expands the state’s Money Transmitters Act to cover activities related to Bitcoin and other Blockchain-based digital currencies.

Cointelegraph asked experts about their take towards this development of how the bill could affect Bitcoin acceptance, its development and that of other cryptocurrencies.

Good step forward for Bitcoin

Lisa Cheng, Founder at Vanbex group, sees this development as a good step forward for Bitcoin. However, she insists that there is still a lot of room left for cryptocurrencies to achieve the full legislative potential.

Cheng explains:

“It gets more complicated when digital tokens represent access to a network rather than financial use. Would Ether be considered virtual currency? This bill needs more work. Considering this is the same North Carolina Governor who signed a bill forcing transgendered individuals to use a specific restroom. I think he needs to slow down on the bill signing though.”

Ripple effect is imminent and side-effects too

Bitcoin expert and system administrator Thor Thurneau thinks that this move will eventually trigger a ripple effect.

He believes that it will set the laws within the industry on a clearer platform and eliminate certain doubts. Nevertheless, Thurneau envisages the possibility of side-effects to the bill.

He says to CoinTelegraph:

“This sets a precedence which many other states can follow. Currently the MSB laws in many states are very grey when it comes to digital currencies. Alaska, for example, said to me "We don't have laws that say you can't do it, so just go ahead until we have legislative guidance." It's really helpful from a business standpoint to have things black or white, it lowers costs and makes decision making easy when considering moving into that market. When simplistic regulation meets emerging technology it will flourish. On the flip side to this we see regulations like NY's BitLicense which stifled legal BTC activity.” 

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