President Joe Biden will sign an executive order this week which will outline the U.S. government’s cryptocurrency strategy, Bloomberg reported Monday (March 7), citing anonymous sources.
The order will instruct federal agencies to look into potential regulatory charges, along with the impact on national security and the economy from digital assets.
According to the report, the order, which has been in the works since last year, will make it so federal agencies across the government have to report what they are doing in relation to cryptocurrency. Biden has been seeing increased pressure to do something about crypto, with industry executives saying there has been a lack of clarity surrounding U.S. crypto rules.
The crypto industry has been seeing more scrutiny from lawmakers as of late, several of whom — including Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Senate Banking Committee Chair Sherrod Brown — have raised concerns regarding the financial sanctions on Russia and whether crypto could be used to bypass the sanctions.
The White House’s general crypto positions have come under focus again because of the same thing. Bloomberg noted that analysts and officials have questioned how effective a workaround crypto could even be, since the market is of a limited size.
However, in spite of the fears that Russians would make use of crypto to get around the sanctions, that hasn’t seemed to be happening yet. PYMNTS wrote that bitcoin, while it was doing well earlier this week, didn’t see a surge from Russian users.
See also: Russian Flight to Cryptocurrency Hasn’t Happened, Analysis Shows
Blockchain data didn’t seem to show Russian users making trades on the exchanges. The ruble-dominated crypto activity was at $34.1 million as of March 3, per data from Chainalysis — a decrease from $70.7 million in late February.
In addition, Citigroup was estimating that annual bitcoin buying from Russia sat at 210 BTC on average per day, a contrast with a daily volume of between $20 billion and $40 billion.
We’re always on the lookout for opportunities to partner with innovators and disruptors.
Learn More