Crypto-Savvy U.S. Senator Sees the Future in Wyoming

In 2013 then-Representative Cynthia Lummis first heard about a new form of currency from her daughter and son-in-law, who helped Lummis buy her first Bitcoin for $330. Eight years later the first-term Republican senator from Wyoming has become one of Capitol Hill’s most ardent supporters of cryptocurrencies and the blockchain technology that powers them. Her state is at the forefront of trying to regulate the fast-evolving digital asset sector after the passage of a slate of crypto-friendly laws in 2018 and 2019.

Driven by curiosity about the subject and advocacy for her state, Lummis, 66, who’s combined a career in government with tending steer on her family’s ranch, regularly attends conferences and workshops on cryptocurrency and has developed a working knowledge of digital money, which initially “sounded so intangible,” she says. (She’s also acquired four more bitcoins; their cumulative value hovered around $250,000 as of Aug. 25.) Earlier this year, in response to a cryptocurrency meme, she even donned a pair of red “laser eyes” on Twitter in support of Bitcoin’s price target of $100,000.