Ex-Regulator Tells US Senators That Crypto Can ‘Empower and Protect the Innocent’
United States Senators will hear testimony today on crypto and its role in the world of crime – but a former senior regulator has warned that politicians coming down too hard on the crypto sector risked throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
The Senate’s Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs will meet later on March 17 in an “open session, hybrid format” for a hearing named “Understanding the Role of Digital Assets in Illicit Finance.”
In written testimony pre-submitted to the committee, Michael Mosier, the former Deputy Director and Digital Innovation Officer of the Treasury Department’s anti-money laundering Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) bureau warned policymakers that “the key” was “to find a [regulatory] balance that doesn’t merely chase bad actors but also prevents exploitation of the vulnerable from the start.”
He conceded that while crypto has undoubtedly found many uses in the world of crime, “we’d be naive to think they are not also powerful tools to empower and protect the innocent.”
As an example, he noted that in the past few weeks, “tens of millions of dollars worth of cryptocurrency were donated by the public to Ukraine” – adding that this was done “faster and more aid than the UN provided.”
“Further,” Mosier claimed, “the transparency of government-identified wallets on a public ledger” had provided what he termed “a substantial improvement in accountability from UN aid through traditional banking.”
He also noted:
“Over-attributing cybercrime to cryptocurrency misses significant operating models and preventive measures that can be taken.”
The former regulator, now a sometime legal advisor to the blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis, claimed that “cryptocurrency has become the recent
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