US Senator Elizabeth Warren has expanded support for her bill that aims to tackle the use of digital assets in money laundering.
Warren (D-Massachusetts), a longtime crypto critic, first introduced the Digital Asset Anti-Money Laundering Act in late 2022 and then reintroduced the 2023 version of the bill last July.
The bill aims to ensure that the crypto industry complies with the same money laundering rules that apply to the traditional financial system. Among other things, it would extend the responsibilities of the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), including Know-Your-Customer (KYC) requirements, to crypto wallet providers, miners, validators and other network participants.
Pro-crypto lobby groups have blasted the potential legislation. In April, Jake Chervinsky, then chief policy officer at The Blockchain Association, said Warren’s bill would essentially ban crypto assets in the US. Chervinsky announced in October that he joined the crypto company Variant as Chief Legal Officer.
According to Chervinksy, the bill would ban normal activities related to crypto assets, such as staking and mining, effectively banning digital assets.
Crypto advocacy group Coin Center also attacked the bill when it was first introduced last year, calling it “an opportunistic, unconstitutional attack on the self-governance of cryptocurrency, developers and node operators.”
However, Warren says the bill is about closing loopholes.
“The Treasury Department makes clear that we need new laws to tackle the use of cryptocurrencies and enable terrorist groups, rogue states, drug lords, ransomware gangs and fraudsters to launder billions in stolen money, evade sanctions, run illegal weapons programs to finance and profit from devastating cyber attacks.”
This week, Warren announced that Senators Raphael Warnock (D-Georgia), Laphonza Butler (D-California), Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland), John Hickenlooper (D-Colorado) and Ben Ray Luján (D-New Mexico) to the bill as co-sponsors.
They join the pool of senators who have already agreed to co-sponsor the potential legislation, including Roger Marshall (R-Kansas), Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia) Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), Gary Peters ( D-Michigan), Dick Durbin (D-Illinois), Tina Smith (D-Minnesota), Angus King (I-Maine), Jeanne Shaheen (D-New Hampshire), Bob Casey (D-Pennsylvania), Richard Blumenthal (D -Connecticut), Michael Bennet (D-Colorado), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nevada), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island) and John Fetterman (D-Pennsylvania).
According to GovTrack, the Digital Assets Anti-Money Laundering Act is currently being considered by the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs.
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