The U.S. House of Representatives approved a bill banning the use of crypto assets to circumvent sanctions. The Ministry of Finance proposed to blacklist cryptocurrency mixers.
The bill was supported by 316 legislators, only 69 people opposed. The bill would require the State Department to notify Congress of any rewards in cryptocurrencies for providing information leading to the arrest of perpetrators of criminal acts. The bill also requires the State Department to report to Congress on the use of cryptocurrencies or blockchain technology to help Ukraine. In addition, it is necessary to provide a report on how digital currencies can affect the effectiveness of sanctions against Russia.
At a Senate Banking Committee hearing, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Combating Terrorist Financing Elizabeth Rosenberg
suggested blacklist all cryptocurrency mixers as they can be used for illegal transactions.
The official is sure that Russian oligarchs can use such services in order to avoid economic sanctions imposed in connection with military operations in Ukraine with the help of digital assets. According to Rosenberg, blocking cryptocurrency mixers will help the government fight financial crime and foreign organizations that try to use crypto assets for illegal purposes.
“Modern technologies for anonymity, including mixing services, really make it difficult to fight illegal financial transactions due to a lack of transparency. Sanctions can be a good deterrent for any criminal who tries to use a cryptocurrency mixer to launder money. This is an effective way to show that we will not put up. It doesn’t matter which country the perpetrator is from: Russia, Iran or North Korea,” Rosenberg said.
In August, the US Department of the Treasury already placed the Tornado Cash mixer on the sanctions list. Reason: Previously, this service was used by the North Korean hacker group Lazarus Group. The actions of the Ministry of Finance in relation to Tornado Cash are outraged by the participants in the cryptocurrency space. These include Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson. He called it an injustice to arrest developers who write code that can always be exploited by attackers. The US Treasury later clarified that Tornado Cash’s open source code could be published online.
Source: Bits
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