The new cryptocurrency enforcement guidelines proposed by the US Department of Justice (DoJ) have received negative responses from some members of the crypto community.
The US Attorney General William Barr released a report from the Department of Justice earlier today, which aims to address the “very dangerous public safety threats” caused by cryptocurrencies.
In this 83-page document, the words “crime” or “criminal” are cited 168 times. Many in the cryptocurrency community interpret the position of the Ministry of Justice as a direct attack on cryptocurrencies. In the report, the encryption industry was labeled “a criminal route”.
Meltem Demirors, chief strategy officer of Coinshares, described the policy document as “the commercial record of every financial crime known in cryptocurrency”, claiming that the Ministry of Justice’s position overemphasizes the criminal use cases of crypto technology, but fails to reasonably state crypto assets Many legitimate uses of
Many people on Twitter responded to this view. “CryptoPennyCO25” gave a fairly typical response, believing that the US Department of Justice report is just trying to describe cryptocurrencies from an unfavorable perspective:
The Ministry of Justice has a negative attitude towards how cryptocurrency becomes a tool for terrorists, rogue regimes, criminals, etc. and the importance of law enforcement to combat such activities.
-CryptoPennyCO♂️2025 (CryptoPennyCO) October 8, 2020
Some people in the XRP community expressed dissatisfaction with this description of the report: “Ripple Labs deliberately violated certain requirements of the Bank Secrecy Act BSA.”
Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple, believes that the report and overall U.S. practices are far from providing clear guidance:
“A report full of contradictions over 70 pages will not reflect regulatory clarity-many responsible private companies are trying to comply with the rules, but when there is no legal arbitrator, this will become increasingly difficult.”
The entire Ripple community reached a consensus with Twitter user Massimo, stating that the report “is meaningless. It does not solve what we really need and allows the encryption industry to mature and progress in a safe, orderly and meaningful way.”
Earlier this week, Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen stated that the company is considering relocating to the UK, Switzerland, Singapore or Japan due to the lack of regulatory clarity.
This new cryptocurrency enforcement framework of the U.S. Department of Justice may speed up Ripple’s decision-Garlinghouse suggests that other companies can also follow Ripple’s decision. He added that unless clearer guidelines are provided, “the company will transfer its investment (or the entire company) overseas.”
However, not everyone in the crypto community opposes this new enforcement framework. Compound general counsel Jake Chervinsky believes that this development has positive implications:
“Such guidelines do not appear often, and are very helpful for understanding government regulations and enforcement priorities. We should all read them carefully.”
