- Senator Elizabeth Warren introduced a new bill that seeks to expand the sanctions exercise against Russia focused on the use of digital assets.
- This law seeks to increase and strengthen the government’s capabilities to act against digital asset exchange houses that carry out any type of transaction with Russian addresses.
- This legislation could affect US taxpayers as they will be required to report their crypto transactions valued at $10k or more with any offshore entity to FinCEN.
As the invasion of Ukraine by Russia continues, the world continues to show its rejection of this war movement, to the point that even companies such as Mastercard, Visa and PayPal have disconnected their services in Russian territory, adding to the series of sanctions that have been promoted by the United States government and NATO members.
The United States has sought to tighten sanctions and has also made a series of warnings and blockades of this type to the government led by Vladimir PutinIn fact, President Joe Biden called the Russian president “a war criminal” for attacking Ukraine and has announced an additional $800 million in aid, including weapons to shoot down Russian planes and tanks.
Crypto bill to toughen sanctions
Continuing with the foreign policy marked by Biden, the senator elizabeth warren recently presented a new bill that has the firm intention of expanding the exercise of sanctions against Russia, its entities and individuals, especially at a specific point, the use of digital assets.
Legislation known as “Digital Asset Sanctions Compliance Enhancement 2022” (The Digital Asset Sanctions Compliance Enhancement Act of 2022) was presented during a hearing of the Senate Banking Committee, on March 17, by the Massachusetts Senate.
Said law has, among other purposes, that of increasing and strengthening the capacities of the executive power to act against digital asset exchange houses that carry out any type of transaction with Russian addresses.
Warren, who is known to be a staunch opponent of digital assets and their systems, noted in her Twitter account Twitter last week, that he was working on a bill that would cover all of Putin’s possible escape routes, so that the Russian president would not be able to evade economic sanctions through digital tokens.
I'll be speaking soon with @Mitchellreports on @MSNBC about my new bill to ensure crypto isn't used by Putin and his cronies to undermine our economic sanctions. Hope you'll tune in! https://t.co/H8iTnA5Ulw
— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) March 8, 2022
Treasury Secretary could stop exchanges that facilitate transactions with Russian wallets
This bill, in addition to empowering President Biden with more power to sanction exchanges, will also allow Janet Yellen, current United States Secretary of the Treasury, has “clear authority” in the fullest sense of the word, in order to rein in the operators of exchanges and payments of digital currencies located in the United Statesits ability to facilitate transactions with wallets that are presumably based in Russia.
Similarly, among the expanded capabilities of the president, said law would allow the US chief executive to issue secondary sanctions against Russian actors that provide any type of help to people and entities, to evade sanctions through digital assets.
Law could affect US citizens
However, this law could affect North American citizens in a secondary way, because in Said legislation indicates that it is necessary for United States taxpayers to inform the government of all crypto transactions valued at $10,000 dollars or more with any offshore entity to FinCEN, the US Treasury Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.
This will allow the government to effectively identify private cryptocurrency wallets.
A necessary action?
Warren highlighted the importance of carrying out actions such as those indicated in the bill, since today, President Putin and his relatives have the ability to move, store and hide their wealth through the use of crypto assets, that is, that hehe cryptocurrencies are a perfect escape door for the Russian government to easily evade the economic sanctions that the United States and its partners have imposed in response to Russia’s war against Ukraine.
It should be noted that the ability of Putin and his associates to use the crypto environment as a means to evade financial sanctions against them by various countries around the world has been a relevant topic of conversation since the invasion of Ukraine began on last February 24.
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