A cybersecurity expert is endorsing Senator Elizabeth Warren’s anti-crypto legislation proposal, saying that it would cut down on scams.
According to a new press release, Warren, a Democrat representing Massachusetts, asked cybersecurity expert Steve Weisman during a special Senate hearing on Aging if her proposed legislation would help cut down on crypto scams.
Weisman responded with a resounding “yes.”
“Yes, absolutely. I love it. Here’s the thing. My students at Bentley University were recently studying money laundering. We were talking about this very thing. The law is always behind technology. The banks have the know your customer rule, which helps. You need to have the private sector and government working together. Your legislation is long overdue.”
Weisman, the editor of Scamicide.com, goes on to note the dangers of crypto mixers, or tools that help crypto investors remain anonymous.
“The anonymity is terrific. You have people looking for privacy and of course that is something with crypto mixers where your account gets mixed in with others and becomes very difficult to trace. One of the things the government did a great job was after the ransomware attack with Colonial Pipeline.
They were able to trace those accounts and get it back, but once he goes into the mixers then you have problems. There is a legitimate privacy concern that people may have, but it does not come anywhere near to the scammers.”
In April, Jake Chervinsky, the chief policy officer of The Blockchain Association, said that Warren’s bill is essentially a ban on crypto assets in the US.
According to Chervinksy, the bill – which was initially introduced in December 2022 – would prohibit normal activities related to crypto assets, such as staking and mining, effectively banning digital assets.
“Senator Warren’s bill would impose a de facto ban on crypto in the USA, criminalizing all sorts of legitimate activity like mining and staking, while doing nothing to actually combat illicit finance. It’s no surprise she’s having trouble finding co-sponsors.”
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