Cryptocurrency Rewarding:
The State Department should provide a study on the viability of using cryptocurrency as a means of rewarding whistleblowers, along with data to support this claim.
American legislators have modified the State Department Basic Authorities Act of 1956 to include information on cryptocurrency awards and payouts.
The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) is being amended to include a provision requiring the Department of State, the executive branch of the U.S. federal government in charge of foreign affairs and relations, to report any cryptocurrency payouts or prizes within 15 days of making them.
Each of several federal statutes governing the annual budget and expenditures of the U.S. Department of Defense is collectively referred to as the “NDAA” in the United States.
Cryptocurrency Payment:
The official record stated:”The secretary of State shall notify the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives and the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate of such form for the prizes not later than 15 days before making a reward in a form that includes cryptocurrencies.”
In addition to the 15-day informational period, the State Department must justify using cryptocurrencies as prizes in a report that it must deliver to the Senate and House foreign relations committees within 180 days of the law’s passage.
Evidence supporting the claim that cryptocurrency payments would spur more whistleblowers to come forward than other “rewards handed out in the United States dollars or other kinds of money or nonmonetary objects” must be included in the report.
The report above should examine whether bitcoin use could provide criminals access to more “hard-to-trace assets that could be used for 16 illegal or illicit reasons.”
The suggested amendment might provide additional information about how much the State Department spends on bitcoin prizes. Once adopted, the policy may also shed light on how the federal government feels about using cryptocurrencies for illegal purposes, a common justification for officials to oppose them.
Final take:
Following Biden’s executive order in March, the Biden administration released the “first-ever” complete framework for cryptocurrency in September of this year. The framework provided six key directions for regulating cryptocurrencies in the United States. The framework is the culmination of nine separate reports on cryptocurrency over time.
