US Senate Proposes Bill to Prevent Russian Elites from Accessing Crypto

Based on the official press release by the US Senate, several senators, including Elizabeth Warren, Jack Reed, Jon Tester, and Mark Warner have been in favor of imposing more oversight on crypto transactions from Russian elites. 

Senator Warren proposed a new bill called the Digital Asset Sanctions Compliance Enhancement Act, according to which, foreign digital asset service providers would need to be verified by the President in order to be available for customers in the United States.

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Warren spoke on the potential threat of Russia’s elites from leaping over sanctions, stating:

"Putin and his cronies can move, store, and hide their wealth using cryptocurrencies, potentially allowing them to evade the historic economic sanctions the U.S. and its partners across the world have levied in response to Russia’s war against Ukraine."

Likewise, the bill would allow the US Treasury to prevent digital wallet addresses, that have been flagged as having ties to Russian oligarchs, to receive or send funds to various cryptocurrency exchanges. 

According to Senator Warner, the bill will allow the US government to prevent Russian assets from interacting with their counterparties, and "crack down on foreign actors who help sanctioned Russians use digital assets like cryptocurrencies to circumvent the crippling measures we’ve put in place to punish Russia for its barbaric invasion of Ukraine."

Just a few weeks ago, the US Department of Justice (DoJ) formed a new task force called KleptoCapture in response to the invasion of Ukraine, which specializes in freezing assets, including cryptocurrencies, that belong to Russian elites.