By Andrew Ramonas, From Corporate Counsel

The Bitcoin Foundation, the leading advocacy group for the controversial digital currency, has bolstered its profile in Washington, D.C., and beyond with the addition of former PayPal Inc. lobbyist Jim Harper.

Harper, who lobbied for PayPal and other tech companies in the early 2000s, joined the foundation’s staff as global policy counsel, a newly created position, the organization announced Tuesday [PDF]. He will focus on the group’s efforts to overcome political obstacles to bitcoin adoption around the world.

With the Harper announcement, the foundation also said it hired Amy Weiss, a former deputy press secretary for President Bill Clinton, as a media consultant. Prior to the Harper and Weiss appointments, Jinyoung Lee Englund, the foundation’s director of public affairs, was the group’s sole representative in D.C. The organization also has offices in Seattle and the United Kingdom.

Harper said he is looking forward to showing policymakers around the world the benefits of bitcoins, which he called “entirely sound,” despite recent concerns about the currency. In February, Tokyo-based Mt. Gox Co., the world’s largest bitcoin exchange, filed for bankruptcy in Japan [PDF] after 750,000 of its users’ bitcoins vanished.

“The work is going to be very interesting,” said Harper, who also is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, a D.C.-based libertarian think tank.

Before joining the foundation, Harper was Cato’s information policy studies director, a position he had held since 2004. From 2001 to 2003, Harper advocated for PayPal and other tech companies at PolicyCounsel.com, a lobbying shop he ran, according to congressional records.

He also was a founding member of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee and was a Republican staffer on Capitol Hill, primarily working for the House Judiciary Committee.

“Bitcoin is rapidly maturing and we are actively building out a world-class team of highly experienced professionals,” Jon Matonis, the foundation’s executive director, said in a written statement. “Jim’s experience with Cato and past experience with PayPal … are invaluable to our efforts around the world and in D.C.”

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