The US treasury department has today convened a meeting of all cryptocurrency leaders in a bid to examine supervisory and regulatory challenges facing all digital currencies. Treasury has long tried to rein in on money laundering avenues through digital currency and this latest move draws it closer towards a seamless regulatory system that protects users and businesses from scammers and terrorist financiers.
Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin stated at the beginning of the meeting,
“The U.S. welcomes responsible innovation, including new technologies that may improve the efficiency of the financial system, we must ensure that we balance innovation with the need to protect our national security and maintain the integrity of our financial system.”
Further Sanctions
The meeting came hot on the heels of another announcement by the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Asset Control to add to their list of sanctioned individuals 20 more bicoin addresses on suspicion of illicit activities. These 20 bitcoin addresses belong to 2 individual and they have come up in a number of illicit transactions throughout the United States.
The meeting of all cryptocurrency leaders and compliance experts will inject more confidence in the industry as the past week had already created stresses in the sector. With such renewed confidence and input from the government, traders will interpret such a move as a clear endorsement of digital coins.
The meeting hopes to achieve a more reliable system to identify and plug inefficiencies in reporting and investigating digital currency crimes. The more versatile the market grows, the easier it is for scammers to use this latency to move funds and escape without a trace. Regulators, however, have to be careful not to erode the years of confidence and privacy that digital currencies have worked hard to maintain. Eventually, it is these industry leaders and compliance experts who have the responsibility of translating regulatory control to cryptocurrency enthusiasts.
Overall, the industry still needs to maintain a firm balance between regulatory control and privacy otherwise; any further moves to regulate the industry with the government’s inclusion will be interpreted negatively. Majority of people with digital currency still value their anonymity but still expect some form of industry-led security compliance.
