A bill introduced this past June is back in the spotlight after renewed hearings and changes have been made to the content of the bill itself. The changes are very drastic and look to widen the scope of what activities and people fall under the proposed new laws.

Bill s.1241 is an anti-money laundering (AML) bill that looks to “modernize” the old laws by adding language for digital currencies among other things. But many parts of the bill are troubling in the way they could effect all American crypto holders and even miners.

For example a financial institution is now defined to be:

“an issuer, redeemer, or cashier of prepaid access devices, digital currency, or any digital exchanger or tumbler of digital currency.”

As for the definitions of those terms above, there is this clarification which is very troubling.

A ‘prepaid access device’ means an electronic device or vehicle, such as a card, plate, code, number, electronic serial number, mobile identification number, personal identification number, or other instrument, that provides a portal to funds or the value of funds that have been paid in advance and can be retrievable and transferable at some point in the future.

So a simple hobbyist miner with one computer would be considered a financial institution and they would need to have all the same paperwork and licenses as a bank, otherwise they are violating the law. Even more absurd, simply holding private keys would make you a “financial institution” under these laws since the keys provide a portal to funds paid in advance.

This basically makes all the components of digital currency fall under their new laws. The bill also goes on to say that concealing any of the above, or simply not disclosing it, would be illegal under this new law. So any crypto wallet you opened would have to be disclosed otherwise you are immediately in violation of this law. This would also make most cryptos illegal as you wouldn’t even have to intentionally try to conceal your accounts but instead, simply not declaring them would be illegal.







Although digital currencies are new, the government’s obsession with creating new laws to gain control over the people is not. I suggest everyone in the crypto space who is an American to reach out to their senators and tell them to not pass this bill. It is far to vague in its definitions and will only be used to stifle innovation and harass individuals.

Make sure to share this article or information so the word can get out so this bill does not pass.