U.S. Treasury Says It Wants to Better Money Laundering Regulations Around Crypto, Other Illicit Finance

The U.S. Treasury Department wants to continue strengthening anti-money laundering and counterterrorism financing efforts related to digital assets as part of its broader strategy to crack down on illicit financing.

The ministry published its 2024 “National Strategy to Combat Terrorist and Other Illicit Financing” strategy on Thursday, outlining its priorities for receiving illicit financing. The Treasury has highlighted its ongoing work on cryptocurrency, including sanctions against specific exchanges and groups such as Bitzlato and Lazarus, the deal with Binance, and warnings about pig slaughter scams. The annual document sets out how the Treasury looks at illicit finance and what role crypto regulations could play in tackling the issue.

Overall, Thursday’s strategy document said the four priorities are to close gaps in anti-money laundering regulations, support a “more effective and risk-focused” framework, increase the effectiveness of law enforcement and leverage technological innovations.

Updating existing supervisory frameworks for cryptocurrencies will support these priorities, the strategy document stated.

This includes working on “global enforcement” as well as potential updates to the US regulatory framework (for anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism). [Financial Action Task Force] standards,” the document said.

“Successful application of the current AML/CFT supervisory and enforcement framework to virtual asset activities requires the United States to allocate adequate supervisory and enforcement resources and continue to invest in technology and training for analysts, researchers, and regulators to develop greater expertise related to new technologies including analysis of publicly available blockchain data,” the document said.

At a news conference, a Treasury official said Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo and Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Undersecretary Brian Nelson discussed the department’s request with lawmakers for greater authority and oversight over certain crypto issues.

“I can say that we will continue to work with Congress to provide technical assistance.” [with those] “There are proposals, and it remains a priority for leaders in this building to get those mandates,” they said.

In Thursday’s document, Treasury said it will continue to monitor how digital asset payments, including decentralized finance, evolve, provide technical assistance to Congress, continue reviewing the use of sanctions and seek more funding for the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network and the Foreign Assets Office. Control.