Congress Introduces Law That Would Provide President Power To Block Access To All ‘Digital Assets’

Congress Introduces Law That Would Provide President Power To Block Access To All ‘Digital Assets’

Jacob M. Thompson

“The President, pursuant to such regulations as the President may prescribe, shall prohibit any transactions between any person subject to the jurisdiction of the United States and a foreign digital asset transaction facilitator,” the bill says.

Earlier this week, a congressman appeared to insert an amendment buried in a must-pass spending bill that would grant the U.S. President sweeping powers to block access to digital assets.

S.4443 – Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2025, first introduced on the federal ledger on June 3rd – which would “authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2025 for intelligence and intelligence-related activities of the United States Government, the Intelligence Community Management Account, and the Central Intelligence Agency Retirement and Disability System, and for other purposes,” the bill’s summary says – recently had this wide-reaching amendment added to it that is buried within the lengthy legislation.

Hidden under “SEC. 423. TERRORIST FINANCING PREVENTION,” the amendment ‘broadly defines “digital assets,” encompassing any digital representation of value recorded on cryptographically secured distributed ledgers,’ Coin Telegraph noted.

The bill states:

The President, pursuant to such regulations as the President may prescribe, shall prohibit any transactions between any person subject to the jurisdiction of the United States and a foreign digital asset transaction facilitator identified under paragraph (1).

Scott Johnsson, a finance lawyer and notable figure in the digital assets space criticized this piece of legislation in a statement on social media. 

“It’s hard to see how this isn’t intended to be a user-level ban power by the President on any protocol/smart contract thats deemed by the Treasury Secretary to be “controlled, operated or [made] available” by a foreign sanctions violator. Breathtaking scope and implications to corral users to KYC/permissioned chains,” he said.

He warns that the move could be seen as an effort to exert control over digital assets under the guise of combating terrorism.

The elements allegedly added by Warner enabling this presidential empowerment are borrowed from the Terrorism Financing Prevention Act.

The act was introduced in a December 2023 announcement, allowing the U.S. Treasury Department to go after “emerging threats involving digital assets.”

The reason for doing this has nothing to do with “terrorism” and offshore money laundering; it’s about paving the way for the new CBDC and tokenized economy. The central banks need to bar other decentralized cryptos and assets. I’ve covered similar acts occurring in other countries, while those same country’s central banks are nearing the release of their CBDCs.