New U.S. bill aims to combat the use of cryptocurrencies by terrorists

   358

The bill submitted by Congress by Rep. Ted Budd (R-NC) of the House Financial Services Committee, invites an Independent Financial Technology Task Force to dole out the rewards, whose amount in either dollars or cryptocurrency was not indicated.

The fintech task force would be managed by the Secretary of the Treasury and filled by five federal directors and four individuals from think tanks, non-profit organizations and the banking industry.

The bill also calls for the creation of a FinTech Leadership in Innovation Fund to develop programs and methods for detecting the use of digital currency among terrorists. This fund could provide grants to universities, companies, NGOs, and anyone who could contribute to research on anti-terrorism detection tools.

In May 2017, a U.S. bill was put forward that would require users crossing the U.S. border to declare their cryptocurrency assets if they exceeded more than $10,000. The purpose of the bill was to combat money laundering, which is often the source of financing the terrorism.

Despite the increasing attention of regulators to terrorism financed by cryptocurrency, the European Union report of June 2017 found that terrorists still prefer to use fiat over digital currency, possibly because of the potential tracking of Blockchain records.