HIs comment might seem normal for a stupid leftist internationalist Senator but it is more interesting in the light of what his fellow WV senator said last month: "I write today to express my concerns about Bitcoin. This virtual currency is currently unregulated and has allowed users to participate in illicit activity, while also being highly unstable and disruptive to our economy. For the reasons outlined below, I urge regulators to take appropriate action to limit the abilities of this highly unstable currency..."
Put those two together and what you have is the banning of an "unregulated" part of the internet by the freedom-promoting China while turning over regulation of the internet to the same. Obviously the US would never ban a UDP protocol and shared database, the internet always works around such damage. But China can stop lots of traffic with much more brute force techniques than we would ever contemplate. I'm not sure how successful they are but they are trying pretty hard.
Think of it like Dem Senator 1 asks to ban only one type of anti-abortion demonstration, for example any demonstratin that refers to any religion in any way. Obviously it would not be enforceable without lots of police at every demonstration including the thought police. But lets say that Dem Senator 2 proposes turning over law domestic law enforcement to the "international community". Now we would see the real world equivalent of what they want to do in bit world.
Jay Rockefeller is not one of the brighter bulbs on the Congressional chandelier, and he never heard of a left-wing crackpot idea that he did not endorse.