US Senators Introduce New Bill to Regulate Cryptocurrency
Two US senators have introduced a bipartisan bill for the regulation of cryptocurrency. The bill is titled "Digital Asset Anti-Money Laundering Act." However, crypto advocacy groups have slammed the bill as "the most direct attack on the personal freedom and privacy of cryptocurrency users and developers we’ve yet seen."
Digital Asset Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2022 Introduced
US
Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Roger Marshall (R-KS) introduced new
legislation to regulate the cryptocurrency sector on Wednesday. The bill, titled "Digital Asset Anti-Money
Laundering Act of 2022," seeks to crack down on money laundering in the
crypto industry.
Senator
Warren tweeted on Wednesday:
"By
closing some loopholes and applying some common-sense rules, we can crack down
on the ways rogue nations, oligarchs, and drug lords use crypto to launder
billions, evade sanctions, and finance terrorism. I’ve got a bipartisan bill
for that."
The
legislation empowers the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement
Network (FinCEN) to designate "custodial and unhosted wallet providers,
cryptocurrency miners, validators, or other nodes who may act to validate or
secure third-party transactions, independent network participants, including
MEV searchers, and other validators with control over network protocols as
money service businesses," explains the text of the bill.
The
crypto policy think tank Coin Center explained that Senator Warren’s
legislation "would force anyone who helps maintain public blockchain
infrastructure, either through software development or validating transactions
on the network, to register as a financial institution (FI)." The crypto
advocacy group further added:
"As
FIs, they would be obligated to identify and record the personal information of
every person who uses their software or sends transactions over their
internet-connected computers."
The
legislation would ban every FI from making transactions involving privacy
tools, such as Tornado Cash, or privacy coins, such as zcash and monero,
"irrespective of any evidence of criminality related to those
transactions," Coin Center noted.
Senator Warren Slammed Over New Crypto Bill
Many
people on Twitter slammed Senator Warren over her new crypto bill. The
pro-bitcoin Senator Cynthia Lummis tweeted: "Requiring open source
developers to build AML/KYC into node software and hardware wallets? That dog
won’t hunt."
Blockchain
law professor J.W. Verret replied to Warren’s tweet: "This bill makes
transactions easier for criminals to trace and far worse than efforts to stop
civil rights through donor surveillance. Your representations about the
magnitude of illicit use are contrary to Treasury’s testimony. Your push here
is just fundamentally deceptive."
Neeraj
Agrawal, Coin Center’s director of communications, said: "The new Warren
bill is a disaster. It would do nothing to prevent the next FTX."
Commenting on Warren’s crypto bill, Jerry Brito, Coin Center’s executive
director, tweeted:
"The
bipartisan Digital Asset Anti-Money Laundering Act, introduced today by Sens.
Warren and Marshall, is the most direct attack on the personal freedom and
privacy of cryptocurrency users and developers we’ve yet seen."
What
is your take on the new crypto bill introduced by Senators Warren and Marshall?
Please post your comments.
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