Warren Davidson, a congressman from Ohio’s eighth congressional district, introduced the “Keep Your Coins” bill in the House of Representatives. The bill aims to safeguard people’ self-custodied crypto wallets from US government agency control. This move serves as a direct reaction to the COVID-19 policy-focused Freedom Convoy demonstrators’ fundraising efforts in Canada.
The bill’s name, ‘Keep Your Coins’ emphasises the protection which the crypto users need against having their own digital assets taken away from them. If approved, Davidson’s bill would “prevent Federal authorities from prohibiting a person’s use of convertible virtual currency to acquire goods or services for the person’s personal use,” as well as other uses such as crypto transactions.
Davidson stated on Twitter that:
Our office will be introducing legislation in the US House of Representatives shortly to protect Americans from this version of overt theft.
Please let your Member of Congress and Senators know… https://t.co/UbNdcj8ZZ4
— Warren Davidson (@WarrenDavidson) February 15, 2022
It is unclear how much support the bill will receive from the Democrats, however, as they have generally been more in favour of clamping down on crypto and blockchain technology:
#DefendFreedom
“So, while financial privacy should already be protected by the Constitution (the Fourth Amendment), preventing the government from being able to prohibit or restrict the use of self‐hosted wallets is a much‐needed policy improvement.” https://t.co/RfpyY6yLQ8— Warren Davidson (@WarrenDavidson) February 16, 2022
Davidson warned at the Miami Bitcoin conference last year that possible over-regulation of the crypto sector regarding private wallets was a “terrible strategy.”
