Anger At Call For Congress To Place ‘Effective Ban’ On Bitcoin Mining
anja van oosterhout

Anger At Call For Congress To Place ‘Effective Ban’ On Bitcoin Mining

THELOGICALINDIAN - Bitcoin proponents accept reacted angrily to what they acquaint is a beginning attack to accomplish US Congress ban accessible cryptocurrencies

Murray: US Should Treat Miners Like Banks

As banking account aperture Business Telegraph reported, on September 3, an able attestant went afore assembly to altercate miners on blockchains such as Bitcoin’s should face abounding banking-style regulation. 

David Murray, carnality admiral for artefact development and casework at Financial Integrity Network, referred to miners as “virtual asset transaction validators.”

“At minimum, basic asset transaction validators should be appropriate to administer accord in their validation systems, with well-designed programs for vetting the issuers, exchangers, and custodians that they serve,” he testified.

Murray was speaking aural the ambience of a agitation which aimed to abode all-embracing animal trafficking. 

He singled out Bitcoin in accurate as allotment of a banking phenomena accumulation which allegedly aggravate the problem. These, he said, should abatement beneath the administration of the Bank Secrecy Act. 

A Bitcoin Ban ‘Couched As Regulating’

The abstraction of authoritative miners analyze arrangement participants is impossible, critics said, as Bitcoin’s blockchain by architecture makes assurance on a centralized validator redundant.

Peter Van Valkenburgh, Director of Research at Coin Center, argued Murray was artlessly aggravating to ban the ‘unbannable.’ 

“It’s couched as acclimation but what it would be is an able ban on American bodies or businesses application accessible blockchain networks because it would crave them to use it on a permissioned basis,” he told CoinDesk afterward Murray’s testimony.

In a report for Coin Center in March, Van Valkenburgh took on the abstraction of applying the Bank Secrecy Act.

“Regulating cryptocurrency software developers and alone users of that software beneath the Bank Secrecy Act would be actionable beneath the Fourth Amendment because it would be a warrantless chase and access of advice clandestine to cryptocurrency users,” he summarized.

Echoes of the FATF

As Bitcoinist reported, efforts to force character requirements on decentralized networks accept already met with atheism this year. In June, intergovernmental anatomy the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) recommended affiliate states do so for parties complex in cryptocurrency affairs account over $1000. 

The idea, which over 200 countries should technically implement, sparked an actual backlash. Authorities, sources said, still could not accept that a cryptocurrency transaction was not like a cyberbanking one. 

“The bodies aggravating to accept Bitcoin are not consulting with anyone who absolutely understands it and who can put it into a able context,” Akin Fernandez, CEO of Bitcoin onboarding account Azteco, declared at the time.

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