Bitcoin is leading to trolling on Capitol Hill. Last week, Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia wrote a letter to Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen and other financial regulators asking them to ban, or more strictly regulate, Bitcoin due to its nefarious uses and infamous volatility. The letter didn't exactly work. Chairwoman Yellen said in response that the Fed doesn't have the authority to regulate Bitcoin because it's an innovation happening outside of the banking industry. And now, Manchin's colleague in the House, Representative Jared Polis of Colorado, is mocking the senator's letter with a very similar one, which replaces "bitcoin" with "U.S. dollar bills."

"Printed pieces of paper can fit in a person’s pocket and can be given to another person without any government oversight," writes Polis. "Dollar bills are not only a store of value but also a method for transferring that value. This also means that dollar bills allow for anonymous and irreversible transactions."

Polis says that the use of dollar bills "for transacting in illegal goods, anonymous transactions, tax fraud, and services or speculative gambling make me wary of their use" and encourages regulators "to work together, act quickly, and prohibit this dangerous currency from harming hard-working Americans."

Polis's spokesperson Scott Overland confirms that the letter is satirical and was not in fact sent to the regulators to whom it was addressed.

"Congressman Polis wrote this letter to help draw attention to the fact that BitCoins and other digital currencies are not any more susceptible to the problems that Senator Manchin points out than dollars are, and in fact the vast majority of criminal activities are conducted in dollars," says Overland by email. "He hopes this satirical letter can help move the serious debate on digital currency forward so we can come up with ways to maximize the potential positive impacts that digital currency can have on the world economy, not ban them in their infancy."

As TechDirt notes, Polis is regarded as one of the "most technologically knowledgeable elected officials" in D.C. Along with being informed about Bitcoin, it would appear he is versed in the art of online trolling.

Polis's office has not received a response from Senator Manchin's staff, nor have they responded yet to my request for comment. I will update this post if they do. Here's Polis's full letter: