Elizabeth Warren is pushing Congress to adopt new bipartisan legislation that would force crypto businesses to abide by the same regulations as banks and corporations in an attempt to crack down on money laundering through digital assets.
The US Democratic Senator from Massachusetts is pushing for new controls on the cryptocurrency industry in the wake of the spectacular collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX. On Tuesday its founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried was loaded with eight criminal counts including conspiracy to commit money laundering.
Warren's bill is cosponsored by Kansas Republican Sen. Roger Marshall. The Digital Assets Anti-Money Laundering Act would essentially subject the world of cryptocurrencies to the same global financial regulations that more conventional money markets must conform to.
Under current systems, cryptocurrency exchanges can circumvent restrictions designed to stop money laundering and impose penalties. If the bill is signed into law, it would authorize the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCen) to reclassify crypto entities as "money service businesses," which would subject them to the basic standards laid out in the Bank Secrecy Act. .
in a statement to CNNWarren said "common sense crypto legislation" would protect US national security. "I've been ringing the alarm bell in the Senate about the dangers of these loopholes in digital assets," he said, adding that the Cryptocurrencies were "under serious scrutiny across the political spectrum."
Bankman-Fried, 30, was charged by prosecutors in the Southern District of New York and is in custody in the Bahamas. The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) also filed civil charges against him, accusing him of creating a company that was a "house of cards."
An area of โโcontinuing interest to researchers was the vast political contributions made by Bankman-Fried to the Democratic Party, as well as to the Republicans in the form, He has said, of secret donations of dark money. the Wall Street Journal has estimated that he gave more than $95,000 in direct campaign donations to the same members of the US House Financial Services Committee who are now investigating him.
Even before the FTX implosion, the treasury department was focusing on the feared national security risks posed by relatively unregulated digital currency exchanges. in August moved against Tornado Casha virtual currency mixer whom he accused of laundering more than $7 billion worth of virtual currency since 2019.
Treasury said Tornado Cash was attractive to launderers of cybercrime proceeds, including the Lazarus Group, a North Korean-sponsored hacking group. The entity's appeal to cybercriminals was that it could move digital assets anonymously, obscuring the origin and destination of transactions and hiding the parties involved.
Warren is a former Harvard law professor and expert on consumer protection and economic inequality. He entered the Senate in 2013, where he established himself as a leading progressive critic of corporate bigotry and a energetic opponent of Donald Trump.
He made an unsuccessful bid for the White House in 2020.
