Supervising bitcoin miners? Some experts have made a bad idea to the US Congress.

According to foreign media coindesk, an expert hearing today will tell a subcommittee of the US Senate that cryptocurrency helps promote human trafficking and therefore should be subject to stricter regulation.

In a written testimony, David Murray, vice president of product development and services at Financial Integrity Network, suggested that Congress should establish a new category of regulated financial institutions called "virtual asset transaction verifiers" (ie, encryption). Currency miners).

Like other financial institutions, these verifiers must know who they are dealing with.

“For these important players in cryptocurrency transactions, this regulatory system will emphasize the due diligence of rival financial institutions,” Murray wrote in a testimony issued before the hearing.

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(David Murray, Vice President, Financial Integrity Network)

Murray said:

"Some existing cryptocurrencies lack system-wide financial crime compliance (FCC) management, which gives criminals room to move, making it difficult for the US to isolate rogue service providers from the US financial system."

It is reported that Murray was the director of the US Treasury's illegal financial office. He believes that miners must at least manage who can participate in the network and review any issuers, exchanges or custodians they serve.

Murray said that the current Bank Secrecy Act does not regulate mining, but if virtual asset transaction verifiers are included in the BSA, they may be the gatekeepers of the virtual asset system.

And if this advice is used, the public blockchain network will face dramatic changes, and anyone can join these networks without permission. But in Murray's view, the openness of these systems has made them exploited by criminals who are trafficked.

He says:

“The trend of decentralization and autonomous systems poses a threat to our ability to control access to the US financial system.”

It is reported that two other expert witnesses at the hearing, Nebraska Attorney General Douglas Peterson and Nebraska Senator Julie Slama, also mentioned in their speeches the use of cryptocurrencies in human trafficking. The problem.

Equivalent to the proposed ban, but also a bad idea

Peter Van Valkenburgh, head of research at Coin Center, a Washington-based cryptocurrency think-tank, said that if Murray's description of miners is regulated, it is tantamount to prohibiting them from participating in the public blockchain network.

Van Valkenburgh tells Coindesk:

“This is considered a kind of regulation, but it actually prohibits Americans or businesses from using an open blockchain network, because it will require them to use them on a licensed basis. This is just a type of technology for all types of cryptocurrencies. ban."

Murray even acknowledged this in his testimony, which wrote:

“It is almost certain that the supervision of people and entities performing these functions will make it difficult for some existing blockchain-based payment systems to continue to operate as they do today.”

Van Valkenburgh pointed out that anonymous cash payments are now legally used, and they are the favorite tools of criminals. He concludes:

"The Internet is used for all kinds of crimes, but if we say 'Let us ban the Internet because it was used for crime' in 1998, the United States will be hit."

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