Senior Treasury Official Sounds Warning on Crypto Terrorism Financing 
This week, Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Adewale Adeyemo appeared before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs to discuss the role of cryptocurrencies in illicit finance, with a focus on the financing of terrorist groups, Russian oligarchs, and other U.S. adversaries. In his testimony, Adeyemo told lawmakers that the Treasury has taken great strides to keep bad actors out of traditional finance, but that this progress has been undercut by the emergence of cryptocurrencies. “The more effective our targeting has been,” he said, “the more reason there is for these terrorist groups to look into virtual assets.” Adeyemo proposed several legislative measures, including new sanctions for foreign cryptocurrency exchanges that facilitate illicit finance. He also asked lawmakers to consider “reforming existing authorities,” to give the U.S. greater jurisdiction over offshore cryptocurrency exchanges that harm U.S. national security. 
 
In November of 2023, CfA urged Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH) to examine the role that the U.S.-based crypto company Circle could be playing in terrorist financing. Since 2021, Circle had allowed its USDC currency to be issued on an offshore blockchain known as TRON, an erratically-managed company which had already had its offices raided by the Chinese government. Circle initially disputed CfA’s findings, and attempted to minimize its relationship with TRON. Then, in February 2024, Circle announced that it would be pulling support for USDC on TRON, which it described as a step to ensure that the currency “remained trusted, transparent, and safe.”