President Biden integrates crypto into his anti-corruption strategy

It is an official 37-page document with the title: The United States’ strategy to counter corruption. Published by the White House, it details the measures that the Biden administration intends to take to fight against various forms of corruption. Among the five pillars around which this strategy revolves, pillar n ° 3 “Bringing corrupt actors to account” specifically targets the cryptocurrency sector with two essential axes:

• ransomware;
• limit the possibilities of foreign nations to evade US sanctions.

The threat of ransomware

Two events particularly marked the year 2021, in terms of ransomware (ransomware). As a reminder, this type of attack consists of encrypting a company’s files and demanding a ransom to be paid in BTC (Bitcoin), this currency making it possible to maintain the anonymity of the recipient.

On May 7, a ransomware attack blocked the operation of the Colonial Pipeline, a pipeline 8,900 kilometers long connecting Houston (Texas) to New York, supplying the majority of gasoline to the east coast of the United States. A week later, the Colonial company Pipeline had to resolve to pay the equivalent of $ 5 million in “non-traceable cryptocurrency”, most likely in Bitcoin.

At the beginning of June, it was the company JBS, which processes 20% of American meat, which had to resolve to pay the equivalent of $ 11 million in BTC.

From the start of the summer, Congress took up the issue. A first task force was set up in order to officially fight against use of cryptocurrencies in illicit financial activities.

Financial sanctions that could lose their effectiveness

This is not all. One of the weapons commonly used by the United States to bend certain nations is the spectrum financial penalties. More than 9,000 sanctions of this type are currently in force, particularly vis-à-vis countries such as North Korea and Iran.

Since September 2021, the Salvador adopted Bitcoin as their national currency. Costa Rica, Laos, Zimbabwe, Lebanon, Jamaica, Peru and others are seriously considering doing the same.

A report released in October by the Biden administration found that digital assets represented a risk to its sanctions system. ” These technologies provide opportunities for malicious actors to hold and transfer funds outside of the dollar-based financial system. They give our adversaries the means to build payment systems aimed at diminishing the global role of the dollar. “

A “task force” dedicated to cryptocurrencies

A task force (task force) was established at the Ministry of Justice, the National Cryptocurrency Encorcement Team as a goal ” to investigate this complex area and to be able to pursue illicit uses of cryptocurrency “.

In fact, the Biden administration has already shown surprising efficiency in its fight against cryptocurrency deviance. Thus, in June 2021, the Department of Justice was able to announce that the FBI had succeeded in recovering 63.7 of the 75 bitcoins that had been disbursed to those responsible for the Colonial Pipeline ransomware. Western in perspective, then!