1 CommentThe United States authorities are taking a closer look at Bitcoin. A Senate Committee is performing an inquiry into the world of cryptocurrency, trying to gather data about what is already being made in the fields of regulation and criminal activity prevention.
Bitcoin Examiner just reported the most recent decision made by the New York Department of Financial Services, which issued subpoenas to 22 Bitcoin-related companies. Now, this Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs is also investigating the matter. On Monday (August 12), the group sent a letter to the Secretary of Homeland Security, using it to inform Janet Napolitano that it had started interviewing people about the risks and possible benefits of virtual currencies.
Virtual currencies “can be sent nearly anonymously, leaving little or no trail for regulators or enforcement agencies”, described the letter signed by the committee’s chairman Tom Carper, a Democrat from Delaware, and by the ranking member Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican. According to the senators, cryptocurrency “near anonymous and decentralized nature has also attracted criminals who value few things more than being allowed to operate in the shadows”.
Identical letters were sent to the US Department of Justice, the Federal Reserve, the Treasury, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The two senators asked these institutions to provide information on how they are dealing with virtual coin.
In the meanwhile, the Senate committee has been interviewing “individuals inside and outside of government”, trying to discover everything about the threats and risks related to cryptocurrencies.
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