Pro-Bitcoin Senator Cynthia Lummis Slams Elizabeth Warren's Crypto Bill Plan: 'That Dog Won't Hunt'

Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), a staunch Bitcoin BTC/USD supporter and holder, has vociferously opposed Sen. Elizabeth Warren's (D-MA) proposed Digital Asset Anti-Money Laundering Act, presented on Wednesday. 

What Happened: The proposed bill is intended to restrict financial institutions from employing privacy technologies including crypto mixers, as well as establishing similar money-laundering regulations for crypto organizations and crypto kiosks (ATMs). 

Furthermore, it demands that miners, custodial wallet services, and self-custodial wallets must apply KYC protocols.

Lummis has expressed her dissatisfaction with the bill, highlighting that KYC needs are not practical within the cryptocurrency milieu. “Requiring open source developers to build AML/KYC into node software and hardware wallets? That dog won’t hunt,” she tweeted.

Requiring open source developers to build AML/KYC into node software and hardware wallets? That dog won’t hunt.

— Cynthia Lummis

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Who’s Saying What: Congressman Tom Emmer (R-MN.), who has been very friendly towards cryptocurrencies, is reviving the bipartisan bill titled “Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act”. This bill, co-led by Congressman Darren Soto (D-Fla.), and originally introduced to Congress in August last year, is proposing to lift the requirement for crypto businesses and projects to register as Virtual Asset Service Providers in response to the collapse of FTX.

Emmer believes introducing the bill again is timely in the present climate, where the US is feverishly creating legislation in order to avoid a recurrence of FTX-style mishaps. On Thursday, he wrote, “the bill asserts that blockchain entities that never custody consumer funds are not money transmitters… providing necessary legal certainty to ensure the future of crypto reflects American values.”

Peter Van Valkenburgh, the director of research at Coin Center, a policy think tank, recently said Warren's proposed bill represents a direct attack on technological progress and a blatant disregard for personal privacy and autonomy. 

This proposed bill "is, in fact, a repudiation of liberal values and a move towards the types of surveillance and control prized by authoritarians like Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and Kim Jong-un," he wrote in a blog post.

Price Action: At the time of writing, Bitcoin BTC/USD was trading at $17,709, down 0.34% in the last 24 hours, according to Benzinga Pro data.

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Photo via Gage Skidmore on Wikimedia Commons