Financial Technology Protection Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. Speaker, H.R. 5036, the Financial Technology Protection Act, would strengthen our efforts to deter terrorist and illicit uses of financial technology. Although financial technology has potential benefits to the economy, there are pressing concerns about the digital currencies facilitating terrorist financing and money laundering.

For example, in August 2015, a Virginia man was sentenced to prison for providing material to support terrorists and admitted to using Twitter to advise others on how to use bitcoin to mask terror financing. Also, in July 2018, Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicted 12 Russian intelligence officers for hacking into the Democratic National Committee during the 2016 presidential election. The hackers used cryptocurrency to purchase the servers and other equipment necessary for the email breaches and used bitcoin to help fund their activities.

This bill would establish a public-private sector task force, a grant program, and a reward program to counter such terrorist or illicit uses of digital currencies. Also, it would require the government to identify how state and nonstate actors and foreign terrorist organizations evade sanctions, finance terrorism, or launder money using these currencies.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Congressman Budd and Congressman Lynch for introducing this bipartisan legislation.

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Mr. KIHUEN. Mr. Speaker, I support the bill; I urge my colleagues to support it as well; and I yield back the balance of my time.

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