miner

Sen. Warren vows reintroduction of AML bill that extends to DAOs and DeFi

While the Senator did not expand on other details of the upcoming bill, she suggested that DeFi should not be exempt from AML laws.

A bi-partisan Anti-Money Laundering (AML) bill that covers “decentralized entities” such as decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols and decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) will soon be reintroduced to Congress, according to United States Senator Elizabeth Warren.

Warren, a vocal crypto critic, argued at the Feb. 14 Senate Banking Committee’s hearing entitled, “Crypto Crash: Why Financial System Safeguards are Needed for Digital Assets,” that the crypto community wants decentralized entities running on code to be exempt from AML requirements:

“In other words, they want a giant loophole for DeFi written into the law so they can launder money whenever a drug lord or a terrorist pays them to do so.”

Due to this, Warren said she would re-introduce the Digital Asset Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2022 that she first introduced on Dec. 15, 2022. It was read twice before being referred to the Senate Banking Committee and has received no further traction.

If legislated as it was, the seven-page bill would have prohibited financial institutions from using digital asset mixers, such as Tornado Cash, designed to obscure blockchain data.

*Senator Warren speaking at the “Crypto Crash” committee hearing on Feb. 14. Source:* *U.S. Senate Banking Committee*.

It also would have resulted in unhosted wallets, miners and validators being required to write and implement AML policies.

The Senator noted current AML laws “don’t cover big parts of the crypto industry” and claimed crypto exchange ShapeShift took advantage of the lack of regulation when it restructured itself as a DeFi platform in July 2021, adding:

“They said we’re making this shift, quote, ‘to remove itself from regulated activity.’ Translation: Launder your money here.”

Warren claimed “big-time financial criminals love crypto” and argued that crypto was “the method of choice for international drug traffickers,” North Korean hackers and ransomware attackers, adding:

“The crypto market took in $20 billion last year in illicit transactions, and that’s only the part we know about.”

These figures are backed up by a Jan. 12 report from blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis, which found that the total cryptocurrency value received by illicit addresses reached $20.1 billion throughout 2022.

According to a United Nations official speaking at a Counter-Terrorism Committee meeting in October 2022, cash is still the preferred choice for financing terrorists, although they are beginning to turn to crypto more frequently.

North Korean hackers operating with the Lazarus Group have also faced headwinds attempting to use crypto with the exchanges Binance and Huobi, who froze accounts they deemed to be linked to the hacker group.

Bitcoin rebound to $18.4K? BTC price derivatives show strength at key support zone

Miners are in deep trouble due to increased hash rate and energy costs, but pro traders slightly added to their longs despite the recent BTC pullback.

Bitcoin (BTC) price lost 11.3% between Dec. 14 and Dec. 18 after briefly testing the $18,300 resistance.

The move followed a seven-day correction of 8% in the S&P 500 futures after United States Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell issued hawkish statements after raising the interest rate on Dec. 14.

Bitcoin price retreats to channel support

Macroeconomic trends have been the main driver of recent movements. For instance, the latest bounce from the five-week-long ascending channel support at $16,400 has been attributed to the Central Bank of Japan’s efforts to contain inflation.

*Bitcoin 12-hour price index, USD. Source: TradingView*

The Bank of Japan increased the limit on government bond yields on Dec. 20, which are now trading at levels unseen since 2015.

However, not everything has been positive for Bitcoin, as miners have struggled with the hash rate nearing an all-time high and increased energy costs. For example, on Dec. 20, Bitcoin miner Greenidge reached an agreement with its creditor to restructure $74 million worth of debt — although the deal requires the miner to sell nearly 50% of it equipment.

Moreover, publically listed Bitcoin mining company Core Scientific reportedly filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Dec 21. While the company continues to generate positive cash flows, the income is insufficient to cover it operational costs, which involve repaying the lease for its Bitcoin mining equipment.

During these events, Bitcoin has held $16,800, so there are buyers at these levels. But let’s look at crypto derivatives data to understand whether investors have increased their risk appetite for Bitcoin.

Bitcoin futures are back to backwardation

Fixed-month futures contracts usually trade at a slight premium to regular spot markets because sellers demand more money to withhold settlement for longer. Technically known as contango, this situation is not exclusive to crypto assets.

In healthy markets, futures should trade at a 4% to 8% annualized premium, which is enough to compensate for the risks plus the cost of capital.

*Bitcoin 2-month futures annualized premium. Source: Laevitas*

It becomes clear that the attempts to push the indicator above zero have utterly failed over the past 30 days. The absence of a Bitcoin futures premium indicates higher demand for bearish bets, and the metric worsened from Dec. 14 to Dec. 21.

The current 1.5% discount indicates professional traders’ reluctance to add leveraged long (bull) positions despite being actually paid to do so.

Top traders unwilling to let go of their longs

Still, investors should analyze the long-to-short ratio to exclude externalities that have solely impacted the quarterly contracts’ premium.

The metric gathers data from exchange clients’ positions on spot and perpetual contracts, better informing how professional traders are positioned.

*Exchanges’ top traders Bitcoin long-to-short ratio. Source: Coinglass*

Even though Bitcoin briefly traded below $16,300 on Dec. 19, professional traders did not reduce their leverage long positions according to the long-to-short indicator. For instance, the Huobi traders’ ratio stabilized at 1.01 between Dec. 16 and Dec. 21.

Similarly, OKX displayed a modest increase in its long-to-short ratio, with the indicator moving from 1.02 to the current 1.04 in five days.

Lastly, the metric slightly increased from 1.05 to 1.07 at Binance, confirming that traders did not become bearish after the ascending channel support was tested.

Strength of $16,800 support is a bullish indicator

Traders cannot ascertain that the absence of a futures premium necessarily translates to bearish price expectations. For instance, the lack of confidence in the exchanges could have driven away potential leverage buyers.

Moreover, the resilience of the top traders’ long-to-short ratio has shown that whales and market makers did not reduce leverage longs despite the recent price dip.

In essence, Bitcoin’s price movement has been surprisingly positive, considering the negative news flow from miners and the bearish influence of raising interest rates on risk markets.

Therefore, as long as the $16,500 channel support continues to hold, bulls have reason to believe that another shot at the $18,400 upper band limit is viable before year-end.

The views, thoughts and opinions expressed here are the authors’ alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.