We Don’t See That Crypto Could Be Used in Large-Scale Way to Evade Sanctions – Regulation Bitcoin News

U.S. Department of the Treasury is not aware that cryptocurrency could be used on a large scale to avoid sanctions. “Its share as a medium for illicit finance is not anywhere as large as just using cash,” a senior Treasury official noted.

Treasury Department’s View on Crypto Use to Evade Sanctions

In an interview with Reuters, Nellie Liang (Treasury undersecretary for domestic finances) discussed the possibility of using cryptocurrency to evade Russian sanctions.

Senior Treasury officials explained that crypto markets are not big enough for an economic system and that crypto ecosystems are too inefficient to allow sanctions evasion at large scale.

“The transaction size we’ve seen is fairly small. Of course, we recognize we may not see everything, but there is a fair amount of oversight,” Liang was quoted as saying. She went on:

At this point, we just don’t see that it could be used in a large-scale way to evade sanctions.

Officials revealed that Treasury officials have been closely studying this issue for several years. The official also stated that the Treasury has been studying the issue for years.

She continued:

While it’s growing because the use of crypto is growing, its share as a medium for illicit finance is not anywhere as large as just using cash.

Senator Elizabeth Warren continues to be deeply concerned despite numerous sources verifying that cryptocurrency does not currently work well for sanction evasion.

She introduced a bill Thursday “to ensure that Vladimir Putin and Russian elites don’t use digital assets to undermine the international community’s economic sanctions against Russia following its invasion of Ukraine.” However, an expert said that her bill is “unnecessary, overbroad, and unconstitutional,” as Bitcoin.com News previously reported.

Last week, President Joe Biden issued an executive order regarding crypto regulation. According to this order, the secretary of Treasury is to coordinate with other agencies and produce a report regarding the future money and payment system. Liang will lead the Treasury’s effort to implement the executive order.

What do you think about the Treasury official’s comments? Comment below.

Kevin Helms

Kevin, a student of Austrian Economics and evangelist since 2011, discovered Bitcoin. His main interests are in Bitcoin security, open source systems, network effects, cryptography, and intersections between economics, cryptography, and Cryptography.