US Senators Reintroduce Accountability for Cryptocurrency in El Salvador Act
Two US senators have reintroduced legislation that requires State Department to produce reports on El Salvador’s adoption of Bitcoin and potential impacts on bilateral economic relations and law enforcement cooperation.
- "Senators Bob Menendez (D-NJ) and Jim Risch (R-ID) — the chairman and ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee, respectively — announced the legislation, called the Accountability for Cryptocurrency in El Salvador Act, on Friday."
- "The legislation was previously introduced and passed out of committee last year."
- "The legislation specifically mandates that the State Department produce a report spelling out the risks for cybersecurity, economic stability, and democratic governance in El Salvador that its adoption of the flagship cryptocurrency poses."
“Given U.S. interest on prosperity and transparency in Central America, we must seek greater clarity on how the adoption of Bitcoin as legal tender may impact El Salvador’s financial and economic stability, as well as El Salvador’s capacity to effectively combat money laundering and illicit finances,” Senator Risch said.
- “Using cryptocurrency as legal tender could weaken economic and financial stability and empower malign actors,” he added.
- “Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought that the US Government would be afraid of what we are doing here,” the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, posted on Twitter back in March of last year, when first reports about the act began to surface.
