Sen. Elizabeth Warren Introduces Sweeping Anti-Privacy, Anti-Freedom Bitcoin Bill

1 year ago

U.S. Senators person introduced a measure that would person a nonstop interaction connected the categorization and regularisation of bitcoin miners, wallets and nodes.

U.S. Senators person introduced a measure that would person a nonstop interaction connected the categorization and regularisation of bitcoin miners, wallets and nodes.

Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass) and Senator Roger Marshall (R-Kan) person introduced the “Digital Asset Anti-Money Laundering Act Of 2022,” a measure which would person sweeping impacts connected the privateness of bitcoin users.

If enacted, the measure would necessitate custodial and self-custodial wallet providers and miners to instrumentality know-your-customer (KYC) systems. It would besides prohibit fiscal institutions from interacting with privateness tools specified arsenic CoinJoin successful an effort to bounds the quality of users to support their privacy. While the measure focuses connected specified measures successful bid to curb wealth laundering, tools specified arsenic CoinJoin simply reconstruct the users’ quality to usage bitcoin successful a mode that much intimately resembles carnal cash. That is, the slope knows erstwhile a lawsuit withdraws currency astatine an ATM, but has constricted cognition of what immoderate idiosyncratic does with it afterwards. This cash-like property is lone realized successful cryptocurrencies done tools specified arsenic CoinJoins. In summation to this, regulating bodies would beryllium allowed to record reports and surveil users without request for a warrant oregon authorities request.

According to the bill, it besides calls for a “rule classifying custodial and unhosted wallet providers, cryptocurrency miners, validators, oregon different nodes who whitethorn enactment to validate oregon unafraid third-party transactions, autarkic web participants, including MEV searchers, and different validators with power implicit web protocols arsenic wealth work businesses,” which would connote that Bitcoin nodes would beryllium classified arsenic specified arsenic well.

The measure seeks for the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) to instrumentality the guidance which, according to blockchain advocacy radical CoinCenter, “is the astir nonstop onslaught connected the idiosyncratic state and privateness of cryptocurrency users and developers we’ve yet seen.”

Senator Elizabeth Warren has antecedently expressed her tendency to modulate the cryptocurrency industry, most recently aft the collapse of FTX. The measure would apt look extended scrutiny as, amongst galore different issues, it would unit unhosted wallets providers to registry earlier publishing their products, efficaciously placing limits connected escaped speech, arsenic codification has been proven to beryllium escaped speech.

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