Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) took a jab at the cryptocurrency industry, asking why the industry seems to say that the only way it can survive is if there’s "plenty of space for the drug traffickers and human traffickers."
What Happened: Warren in a Bloomberg interview on Tuesday said, “I want to collaborate with the industry."
She adds, "What I don’t understand is why the industry seems to be saying that the only way that they can survive is if there’s plenty of space for the drug traffickers, human traffickers and the terrorists. And the ransomware scammers are in the consumer scammers and the rogue nations, like North Korea, that is financing about half of its nuclear missile program with crypto, that all of that has to be left open.”
Warren is not new to advocating for stringent control over the crypto industry. In December, a group of Democratic lawmakers, with Warren’s support, co-sponsored the “Digital Asset Anti-Money Laundering Act.” This proposed legislation, if enacted, would bring broader scrutiny to the cryptocurrency industry by imposing traditional banking regulations such as KYC on various industry players including miners and wallet providers.
She said, “In our financial system, pretty much everybody follows the same set of rules…but not crypto.”
Responding to Warren’s comments, Ryan Selkis, the CEO of Messari called Warren a “shameless liar” and said that the crypto industry is prepared to engage her in political combat over her position.
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Why It Matters: Warren, alongside 19 other senators, including Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), has been actively pushing for the passage of her Digital Asset Anti-Money Laundering Act over the last year. In a February Senate Banking Committee hearing, she argued that this “bill would plug the holes in our anti-money laundering rules to make it easier for financial regulators to track suspicious crypto activity to make it more visible and to shut down the scammers.”
During the same hearing, Warren also expressed her apprehensions regarding stablecoins, claiming new data suggests that these digital assets are frequently involved in illegal crypto transactions.
Amid these developments, pro-crypto lawyer John Deaton from Rhode Island moved to Massachusetts with the intention of challenging Warren for her Senate seat. Deaton’s move denotes increasing pushback from within the sector against current political sentiments surrounding cryptocurrency.
Price Action: At the time of writing, Bitcoin BTC/USD was trading at $56,901, up 0.93% in the last 24 hours, according to Benzinga Pro.
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