As 2024 nears, the politicians in the United States are gearing up for the elections scheduled next year. Given the regulatory environment in the country, it has been anticipated that an approach toward crypto would be suitably important.
On Wednesday, Senator Elizabeth Warren from Massachusetts took to Twitter to share her re-election campaign. Notably, the campaigning of this Democratic leader is going to be hugely focused on the crypto industry.
In her latest Twitter feed, Senator Warren calls for her followers and at large the voters to join the campaign and support her through it. She starts by touting her plans and past achievements, which include making over-the-counter hearing aids available and lowering the cost of childcare in the state of Massachusetts.
Notably, among the achievements and plans shared in the post, Warren shared a plan to “build an anti-crypto army” in the country. However, her antagonistic outlook towards the crypto industry isn’t new. The Massachusetts Senator has been fighting to curb the spread of cryptocurrencies in the U.S. for several years.
In February, Senator Warren alongside other Democrat lawmakers wrote a letter addressed to the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to accelerate their plans to require crypto-mining companies to report their energy consumption and emissions.
Prior to that, in October, Todayq News reported that Senator Warren and a group of six other US senators have asked for data on the energy use and potential environmental effects of Texas-based bitcoin mining facilities. They expressed their concerns about the possibility that mining operations could put additional strain on the state’s power grid, referring to Texas as a “deregulated safe harbor” for cryptocurrency mining companies.
Her efforts culminated in December 2022 with the introduction of the Digital Asset Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2022. At the time, the bill was widely criticized both by republicans and fellow democrats, with the broader crypto and tech industries warning about the dangerous implications it could have.
Following that, in February, Senator Warren and Senator Roger Marshall, a Republican from Kansas, plan to reintroduce legislation that would extend anti-money laundering laws to a broad array of cryptocurrency ecosystems. That would include digital asset wallet providers, miners, validators, and other blockchain network participants.
Warren has been a long-time critic of crypto as last year, in a media interaction, she referred to the bitcoin industry as “a new shadow bank.” Her statement came at a time when the regulators reportedly were struggling with a financial market dominated by loans.
At large, the ideologies of the two political parties in the US are very different and the same has been reflected in matters of policy making. In December, lawmakers from each side introduced poles apart bills for regulating cryptocurrencies. Hence, the elections next year are going to play a very important role in shaping the future of cryptocurrencies in the nation.