Elizabeth Warren’s New Financial Surveillance Bill Is a Disaster for Privacy and Civil Liberties

In addition, the bill effectively bans privacy-enhancing technologies in blockchain networks. The bill would prohibit all financial institutions from handling, using, or transacting with digital asset mixers, privacy coins and “any other anonymity-enhancing technologies.” The list of financial institutions prohibited from interacting with privacy-enhancing technologies includes the broad group of blockchain network participants that would be classified as money-service businesses under the bill – meaning that developers, miners, validators and custodial and self-hosted wallet creators would all effectively be prohibited from interacting with privacy-enhancing technologies, including privacy coins.