U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren criticized the illegal use of cryptocurrency assets by bad actors. Commenting on a report issued by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), Warren declared that “rogue nations are using crypto to dodge sanctions and undermine our national security,” calling to establish increased money laundering rules on these assets.
U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren: ‘Rogue Nations Are Using Crypto to Dodge Sanctions’
Elizabeth Warren, a U.S. senator, has commented on the role digital assets fulfill for bad actors, which use them to sidestep sanctions established by the U.S. government. In a post on X, Warren criticized the use of these tools for these purposes, calling for establishing controls that would contribute to diminishing this use.
Commenting on a U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) that examines the use of digital assets to evade sanctions, Warren stated:
A new U.S. GAO report confirms that rogue nations are using crypto to dodge sanctions and undermine our national security.
The report, issued in December, found that “digital assets like bitcoin and other virtual currencies pose risks to implementing and enforcing U.S. sanctions” but that the agency could mitigate some of these risks, given that “many digital assets are recorded on a public ledger, which may enable U.S. agencies and analytics firms to trace transactions and potentially identify illicit actors.”
Warren got hit by a community note on X, clarifying that the U.S. Treasury’s National Money Laundering Risk Assessment report confirmed that fiat was the preferred currency for financial crimes. Nonetheless, Warren called for “crypto to follow the same anti-money laundering rules as everyone else,” promoting her own Digital Asset Anti-Money Laundering Act, which would apply Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) rules to several elements of the crypto tech stack.
Warren also got criticized by several actors in the cryptocurrency industry. Coinbase CLO Paul Grewal blasted the referred report, stressing that it was made with “zero comparative analysis” just to “harangue an industry that spends millions and millions to follow the law.”
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