US Senator Drops Support for Warren’s Anti-Crypto Bill

US Senator Roger Marshall, a Republican, has withdrawn his support for a 2022 anti-crypto measure that he and Senator Elizabeth Warren co-authored.

The Digital Asset Anti-Money Laundering Act, a contentious anti-crypto measure that Republican Senator Roger Marshall and Democrat Senator Elizabeth Warren co-authored in 2022, has lost Senator Marshall’s support.

According to the official Congress directory on the measure, Marshall withdrew his support as a “cosponsor” of the bill on July 24, leaving 18 senators in favor of the legislation.

Together, Marshall and Warren submitted the DAAMLA bill in December 2022, with Senator Warren alleging that cryptocurrency was being used to launder billions of dollars worth of stolen funds by “rogue nations, oligarchs, drug lords, and human traffickers.”

The purpose of the law is to hold the cryptocurrency sector accountable under the current standards for counterterrorism financing and anti-money laundering.

The measure is noteworthy because it classifies a wide range of cryptocurrency service providers as financial institutions and requires them to abide by the rules of the Bank Secrecy Act. These providers include miners, validators, and providers of decentralized wallets.

In July 2023, Warren reintroduced the DAAMLA bill to the US Senate. It focuses on the illegal use of digital assets for terrorism financing and money laundering.

Numerous cryptocurrency groups and people have criticized the proposed legislation for vastly inflating the role of cryptocurrency in financing illegal activity and terrorism, and they have cautioned that it may hinder the US cryptocurrency market.

The Chamber of Digital Commerce (CDC), a US-based cryptocurrency advocacy group, urged the Senate Banking Committee not to take up the DAAMLA bill on February 20. The group claimed the bill would “erase hundreds of billions of dollars in value for US startups and decimate the savings of countless Americans” who had made lawful cryptocurrency investments.

Eighty former US government national security and military officials wrote a letter to Congress on February 13 cautioning them not to support the DAAMLA bill.

The letter from the officials cautioned that by “driving the majority of the digital asset industry overseas,” the measure would impede law enforcement and raise worries about national security.

In 2024, Senator Warren will seek reelection to continue serving the people of Massachusetts. Pro-crypto attorney John Deaton said on February 20 that he would challenge Senator Warren in a Republican primary.