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ARTICLE · 30 OCTOBER 2020

DOJ Cyber-Digital Task Force Renews Focus On Cryptocurrency Enforcement

Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer LLP
Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer LLP
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The technologies underlying cryptocurrencies offer great opportunities, but also pose new cybersecurity threats.

United StatesTechnology
Alan Friedman
Alan Friedman
Darren LaVerne
Darren LaVerne
Arielle Warshall Katz
Arielle Warshall Katz
Patrick J. Campbell
Patrick J. Campbell
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The technologies underlying cryptocurrencies offer great opportunities, but also pose new cybersecurity threats. A U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) task force has been taking a closer look at those threats, as well as the tools that DOJ and other agencies have to guard against them.

Building off a 2018 alert outlining cyberthreats generally, and following the federal indictment for money laundering of the founders of the offshore cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX on Oct. 8, 2020, DOJ released an 83-page report that recognizes both the "breathtaking possibilities" that distributed ledger technologies present for society and the important role that "technology already plays ... in many of the most significant criminal and national security threats our nation faces." The report begins with a discussion of several categories of illicit cryptocurrency use, discusses the many legal and regulatory tools available to confront the threats posed by illicit cryptocurrency use,

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