Digital Rights Groups Team Up With Tech Companies to Fight A.B. 1326, the Virtual Currency License

A coalition of nonprofit advocacy organizations and virtual currency companies published a letter today calling on the California legislature to reject A.B. 1326 unless important fixes were made to the bill. A.B. 1326 would create a license for virtual currency businesses in California. The 17 organizations include nonprofit advocacy groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Fight for the Future, the Internet Archive, and the Free Software Foundation; Bitcoin startups like Bolt, Blockstream, Gem, Bitwage, and Purse.io; and Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com. The coalition is asking the California legislature to hold off on adopting a virtual currency licensing scheme until adequate research has been done, critical flaws in the proposed legislation have been addressed, and experts in the virtual currency space have been given an opportunity to weigh in on the proposal. In lieu of a hastily drafted and far-reaching licensing program, the letter asks the…