A bunch of US senators has debuted a bipartisan invoice centered on cash laundering and sanctions compliance that, if authorised, would have main implications for decentralized finance protocols.
Senator Jack Reeds, D-R.I., is the sponsor of the invoice, the Crypto Asset Nationwide Safety Enhancement Act of 2023. Sens. Mark Warner, D-Va., Mike Rounds, R-S.D., and Mitt Romney, R-Utah, are co-sponsors.
The invoice was learn on the Senate flooring Tuesday night, however as of Wednesday at time of publication, the invoice textual content had not but been publicly launched.
In keeping with a draft copy of the invoice obtained by Blockworks, the Crypto Asset Nationwide Safety Enhancement Act seeks to topic DeFi protocols to the identical guidelines as different US-regulated monetary intermediaries.
The invoice would require anybody who “controls” a DeFi protocol to make sure there are anti-money laundering applications in impact and cling to know-your-customer (KYC) insurance policies. DeFi protocol controllers would even be accountable for reporting suspicious exercise and ensure anybody blocked by sanctions shouldn’t be utilizing the protocol.
If there’s not an identifiable controller of the protocol, the invoice states that anybody who invests greater than $25 million in growing the protocol could be held accountable.
“Digital foreign money kiosks” equivalent to bitcoin ATMs could be required underneath federal regulation to abide by KYC legal guidelines, the invoice proposes.
Operators of such ATMs/machines should “confirm and file, at a minimal, the identify and bodily tackle of the patron, which shall embody evaluate of an official doc evidencing nationality or residence that features a {photograph} of the patron,” the invoice states.
This invoice comes after previous bipartisan efforts to advance crypto guidelines on the federal stage have fallen quick. Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Roger Marshall, R-Kans., launched the Digital Asset Anti-Cash Laundering Act final session. The senators introduced the invoice to the ground in December, simply weeks earlier than the session ended, and the laws by no means made it to markup or vote.
Warren and Marshall’s invoice centered on limiting monetary establishments’ entry to crypto mixing companies, privateness cash and “different anonymity-enhancing applied sciences.” The US Division of Treasury sanctioned crypto mixing service Twister Money months earlier than Warren and Marshall launched their invoice.
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