-
A
new
bill
from
House
Financial
Services
Committee
Democrats
is
expected
to
target
crypto
mixing
services
this
week. -
Legislation
from
the
minority
party
is
unlikely
to
move
the
needle
in
the
waning
months
of
the
House’s
crypto
negotiations,
though
its
topic
is
at
the
center
of
discussions
over
illicit
finance
in
the
digital
assets
sector.
Several
Democrats
on
the
House
Financial
Services
Committee
have
a
bill
coming
this
week
to
target
money
laundering
through
cryptocurrency
mixing
services,
said
Rep.
Sean
Casten
(D-Ill.),
one
of
its
backers.
The
legislation
will
“clamp
down
on
mixers,”
Casten
said
of
the
bill
during
a
hearing
Tuesday
on
U.S.
securities
enforcement
practices,
adding
that
the
effort
will
also
be
supported
by
Reps.
Brad
Sherman
(D-Calif.),
Emanuel
Cleaver
(D-Mo.)
and
Bill
Foster
(D-Ill.)
“The
presumption
should
be
that
these
are
money
laundering
channels,”
Casten
said,
unless
sufficient
audit
work
shows
otherwise.
“Let’s
go
through
and
get
that
cleaned
up
and
fixed.”
Such
a
bill
would
arrive
as
U.S.
authorities
continue
to
crack
down
on
mixers,
accusing
the
privacy
services
of
being
tools
for
illicit
finance,
including
in
the
well-known
Tornado
Cash
case
and
the
more
recent
pursuit
of
the
developers
behind
Samourai
Wallet.
A
Democrat
bill
arriving
in
the
Republican-majority
House
during
this
latter
stage
of
the
congressional
session
is
unlikely
to
go
anywhere,
but
it
highlights
one
of
the
central
points
around
illicit
finance
at
the
heart
of
lawmaker
negotiations
about
future
crypto
policy.
Casten
also
noted
Tuesday
his
concerns
about
the
offshore-issued
stablecoin,
Tether
(USDT),
and
reports
that
it’s
backed
“Russia’s
war
machine”
and
been
used
for
funding
Hamas.
Despite
crypto
lobbyists’
ongoing
insistence
that
digital
assets
policy
is
a
bipartisan
exercise,
the
hearing
saw
Democrats
finding
fault
with
the
crypto
industry
while
Republican
lawmakers
criticized
the
aggressive
enforcement
posture
of
the
Securities
and
Exchange
Commission
(SEC)
and
its
use
of
legal
actions
to
try
to
steer
industry
behavior.
Rep.
Bill
Huizenga
(R-Mich.)
was
among
Republicans
who
highlighted
the
recent
scandal
of
SEC
lawyers’
abuses
in
the
DEBT
Box
case,
and
he
also
noted
that
the
agency
is
using
it’s
so-called
Wells
notices
–
written
alerts
to
a
company
warning
of
planned
enforcement
actions
–
“at
an
astonishing
rate,
especially
when
it
comes
to
digital
assets.”
Sherman,
one
of
the
backers
of
the
pending
mixer
bill
and
a
very
vocal
crypto
critic,
argued
that
the
digital
assets
industry
“has
fought
tooth
and
nail
against
any
meaningful
regulation.”
“Crypto
is
a
garden
of
snakes,”
he
said.
“Recent
SEC
actions
illustrate
that.”