U.S. Treasury Secretary Confirms That Agencies Are Working on New Crypto Rules
According to the latest Bloomberg report, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has confirmed that the U.S. regulators are working on new financial rules to makes sure that they don’t have any negative impact on the country’s financial system.
The announcement of Facebook’s Libra project last month has forced the regulators to take a definitive actions instead of constantly delaying the regulatory process when it comes to the crypto markets.
The Trump administration has finally decided to get directly involved with crypto regulations while assessing the potential risks associated with virtual digital currencies. Over the last two weeks during the Facebook’s hearing with the U.S. senators, Secretary Steven Mnuchin has explicitly stated his views on cryptocurrencies while expressing his concerns.
During a CNBC interview last week, Mnuchin said that “We’re looking at all of the crypto assets. "We’re going to make sure we have a unified approach and my guess is that there are going to be more regulations that come out from all these agencies.”
Mnuchin also expressed concerns of Bitcoin being used for illicit and criminal activities. Mnuchin has already warned that the financial regulators will work together to bring “very, very strong” regulations to make sure that Bitcoin isn’t used for any secret activities and that it doesn't become equivalent to any Swiss accounts.
During the CNBC interview, Mnuchin said: “We’re going to make sure that bitcoin doesn’t become the equivalent of Swiss-numbered bank accounts, which were obviously a risk to the financial system”.
He further added: “I want to be careful that anybody who’s using bitcoin — regardless of what the price is — is using it for proper purposes and not illicit purposes. And there are billions of dollars of transactions going on in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies for illicit purposes.”
Some of the Swiss Bank accounts have offered their clients financial secrecy. While the government institutions have criticized such measures saying that they provide bad actors a way to avoid government scrutiny and do tax evasion.