Lawmakers have removed cryptocurrency provisions from the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, which is heading for a final vote.
The 2024 National Defense Authorization Act is almost certain to be approved without new rules targeting cryptocurrencies after negotiators scrapped encryption language to ease passage through the House and Senate.
While the legislation retains broad provisions for existing security programs, it avoids expanding regulatory scope to digital assets. The decision defers any potential new cryptocurrency regulations to possible future action by Congress.
According to the Senate Armed Services Committee, the bill omits a Senate amendment that would have required the Treasury secretary to establish a review process to evaluate financial institutions’ cryptocurrency laundering controls and compliance.
Another Senate proposal that was defeated would have forced the Treasury secretary to submit a report and briefing to congressional committees evaluating the technology that supports anonymous crypto transactions and other countries’ legislative and regulatory approaches.
With cryptocurrency regulations on hold, the threshold for passage in both houses of Congress has been lowered. However, despite the lack of increased regulation of digital assets, broad military policies remain unchanged.
Focus on markups on core defense priorities
The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) is legislation passed annually by Congress to authorize funding and establish policy for U.S. military and defense programs. One of a handful of major bills that routinely become law each year, the NDAA sets out spending levels and management priorities for all branches of the Armed Forces and DoD agencies.
Because the bill is often considered must-pass legislation, lawmakers often try to add additional provisions to its language. These often face intense scrutiny before the final vote.
Instead, negotiators focused solely on core military priorities. These include troop pay increases, weapons upgrades, domestic surveillance expansion, semiconductor projects, naval shipbuilding plans and similar defense policy provisions.
Military officials now hope to lock in $886 billion for such priorities while sidestepping asset transparency rules that were proposed but ultimately shelved during lengthy consensus negotiations. It also continues a broad range of existing military policies, but without the recently proposed expansion of assigning more regulatory responsibilities to cryptocurrencies.
With the cryptocurrency-related provisions removed, the NDAA is now moving toward a final vote and presidential signature. #加密规则 #法案
