U.S. Congressman Patrick McHenry (R-NC 10), Republican Leader of the House Financial Services Committee, was the guest for the pilot episode of online YouTube series Blockchain Policy Matters, and he believes that microtransactions done on blockchain technology is the future. Blockchain Policy Matters is hosted by Bitcoin Association founding president Jimmy Nguyen.
The North Carolina representative is a true believer of Bitcoin and blockchain technology, and all eyes are currently on him as digital currencies and financial fairness become hot topics in Washington D.C. McHenry is very vocal about his support for the adoption of blockchain technology.
“Imagine talking about a very small transaction, to perhaps read an article or for a driverless car to ask another driverless car to let you pass. There are huge opportunities that are quite limitless for the use of blockchain technology….. The potential here is that you have connected with your daily life perhaps dozens or hundreds of transactions. I think that is the world of the future—potentially thousands of these small transactions [that] would enable your life in a more seamless way,” McHenry said.
What the Republican leader is talking about here is the ability of the Bitcoin SV blockchain to process instant microtransactions at a very low cost. The BSV test network has recently hit a record of more than 9,000 transactions per second. A 2020 report states that Bitcoin SV processed average daily transactions of 636,632 at an average fee of 0.002 USD for the period of January 1 to July 24. And the price can get even lower as the network continuously increases its capacity.
“We’re talking about a wholly different view that is broadly enabled by technology; you may not be able to see it, you may not be able to feel it, but you’ll experience the good results of it in the future,” McHenry explained.
“The first layer here is to actually monetize the Internet and to make the Internet truly the Internet of money…. Bitcoin is that layer that will enable us to take the exchange of data and actually have an exchange of data for some value. I think it’s a huge opportunity to connect data and tradeable value,” McHenry added.
At present, countries from all over the world are already taking advantage of blockchain technology by developing various innovative platforms. For instance, Australian company Layer2 Technologies has already tested B-Vote, a voting system built on the Bitcoin SV blockchain, and it has found that it is more than capable of handling all of the votes of the country’s entire population. B-Vote will provide transparency, immutability and security to voting—something that many countries need. McHenry is aware of these benefits and believes the federal government needs blockchain technology in its system.
“Those honeypots of data and information—the federal government keeps building and is intentional about building up these really clunky, last-generation systems. So, the federal government has to advance dramatically. I think blockchain technology for our federal record-keeping is really quite right, but that is going to take quite a while to do,” McHenry said.
Microtransactions on the Bitcoin SV blockchain is indeed the future, and policymakers need to gain a basic education about this technology in order to approve of its widespread adoption.
