Warren’s Crypto Troubles: Sanctions Bill Irks Community

Table of Contents

• Digital Assets Sanctions Bill Proposed
• Tracking Crypto Transactions Over $10K
• Warren Questions Crypto Over Russian Sanctions

Many crypto advocates and experts have thoroughly criticized Senator Warren’s crypto bill, calling it unconstitutional, unnecessary, and overboard. 

Digital Assets Sanctions Bill Proposed

On Thursday, United States Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) announced the Digital Assets Sanctions Compliance Enhance Act, along with Senators Jack Reed (D-R.I.), Mark Warner (D-Va.), Job Tester (D-Mont.), and others. If passed, the legislation could prevent crypto companies from working with sanctioned companies from across the world. In addition, Crypto companies based outside the United States could be sanctioned by the President under this legislation for supporting sanctions evasion. 

Tracking Crypto Transactions Over $10K

Furthermore, the presidential administration will also need to identify foreign individuals facilitating any kind of crypto operations who have supported sanctions evasion by Russians. Once singled out, these individual crypto facilitators or exchange operators could be sanctioned under the proposed bill. 

Additionally, the bill also proposes that the Treasury Secretary should be able to prevent US crypto exchanges from conducting transactions with crypto addresses based out of Russia, if deemed to be in the national interest. Furthermore, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) will also be authorized to identify users transacting in over $10,000 in crypto, which is what has angered the community the most. 

Warren Questions Crypto Over Russian Sanctions

Sen. Warren has long been suspicious of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology, even going as far as calling it “the new shadow bank.” She had previously proposed the Ransom Disclosure Act to analyze crypto’s role in ransomware attacks. Her strict crypto policies have gained her the trust of the SEC, which is also in favor of gaining a tight chokehold around this industry. Recently, Warren and other lawmakers have been suspecting Russia of using cryptocurrencies to evade the sanctions imposed on them. 

However, many industry experts have already declared that the transparent nature of blockchians would not be conducive for Russian oligarchs laundering billions of dollars of crypto. In a Senate hearing on Thursday, the co-founder of blockchain analysis firm, Chainalysis, Jony Levin was asked by Warren if chain-hopping and mixing could make it easier to hide crypto transactions, to which Levin responded “no.” 

The bill has received severe reproval from the community at large. Washington DC-based think tank Coin Center has referred to it as “unnecessary, overbroad, and unconstitutional.” The organization has also highlighted the problematic wording of the bill, which would even include developers or programmers who contributed to the code of a crypto as being a “digital currency transction facilitator,” without taking into account the nuances of open-source software. The Coin Center team wrote, 

"This proposed legislation is dangerously overreaching and opportunistic. It will do nothing to improve sanctions against the Russian war machine and may even increase the Russian government’s ability to isolate and control those within their borders who do not support the war."

Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.