U.S. Senator Lummis, Hints On Global Internet Outage and Bitcoin Stability

The United States Senate has finally lent its voice to discuss the latest global internet outage that occurred on Friday. On her X handle, the senator asked her followers to guess which currency network wasn’t affected by the internet or outage. The outage was caused by a bug in one of the software updates from Microsoft.

This event disrupted global financial services, television broadcasters, and medical offices. Further describing the extent of the damage, United States Senator Cynthia Lummis said the incident halted air travel globally, with several news of flight cancellations, stoppages, delays, and airports issuing alerts.

Lummis described the incident as a humiliating effect of technological interconnectedness while highlighting its future dangers. Another report presented before the house linked the disruption to CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity company that had a glitch in their technical update.

Senator Lummis Explains Bitcoin Stability, Financial Infrastructure in Doubt

While explaining the situation, George Kurtz, CrowdStrike’s CEO, cleared the air on mounting speculations of a possible cyber attack. Kurtz said the cause of the outage was immediately identified and resolved.

Troy Hunt, a prominent cybersecurity expert from HaveIbeenpwned, an internet service specializing in tracking password breaches, has tagged the recent incident as the biggest information technology outage in the history of the internet. Senator Lummis, in her presentation also revealed that the Bitcoin hash rate remained stable amid the huge internet interruption. She further explained that it is a sign of Bitcoin’s robust infrastructure.

Further investigation shows that many Bitcoin miners use Linux-based computer frameworks that protect them from the said attack, which affected mostly the global conventional banking system.  The incident raised questions about the resilience of the global financial infrastructure and demonstrated how susceptible centralized systems are to technological malfunctions.

Lummis Demand for Regulatory Assistance to Encourage the Development 

Lummis stated, “This outage has shown us the fragility of our centralized financial systems.” These nodes sign transactions and log them on the blockchain, which is an open ledger. The network is more resistant to disruptions and attacks since it is decentralized and not dependent on a single point of failure. 

Senator Lummis also demanded increased regulatory assistance to encourage the development and uptake of decentralized financial technology. According to her, adopting these technologies might make the financial system more resilient and lower the likelihood of future disruptions. Lummis argued, “We need to establish a regulatory framework that promotes innovation and permits these technologies to grow.”

The senator, who’s also a member of the Senate’s Banking Committee, went ahead to emphasize the importance of educating the general population about the advantages and applications of cryptocurrencies. Lummis underlined, “We must teach the public how to use these technologies safely and effectively.”

Cryptocurrency Community Commends Lummis As Price of Bitcoin Rebounds

Mike Novogratz, CEO of Galaxy Digital, a cryptocurrency investment firm, said, “Senator Lummis has been a steadfast supporter of our industry, and her recognition of Bitcoin’s stability during the outage is significant.”

Before now, the senator has constantly pointed out the need to adopt blockchain technology and leverage its decentralized framework to strengthen cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin against disruptions like the incident on Friday. In an interview with Decrypt, the CEO and founder of Sunnyside Digital, Taras Kulyk, said that Bitcoin’s continued stability during the outage is due to complete independence from Microsoft software.

Meanwhile, the price of Bitcoin has recovered sharply from its initial six-month dip on  July 5th when it went as low as $53,500, but quickly reclaimed its position to settle at $66,000, getting ready to hit an all-time high of $73,700 as it did in March. However, this is coming a few hours after the global internet outage happened.

As at press time, the Bitcoin is selling at $67,997.49, a+0.91% increase with the present market capitalization of $ 1,341.52 billion. Data from Binance analysis recorded that the coin’s 24 hours trading volume stood at $24.34 billion, with a circulating supply of 19.73 million.