- People are calling out RESTRICT Act, saying that it will be used to ban Bitcoin and crypto in the US.
- RESTRICT Act is being pushed to ban TikTok in America, with backing from the Biden administration.
- The text says the Secretary of Commerce will be empowered to “identify” threats to the US’ “digital economy.”
Amid the ongoing push to ban social video hosting giant TikTok in America, people are calling out the possibility that it could have deeper implications for other industries, especially crypto.
The screenshot in the tweet above refers to the text in RESTRICT Act, one of the two bills that are being pushed into full legislation and implementation.
RESTRICT Act roughly aims to police transactions that happen between Americans and companies from countries that are perceived enemies of the US. The bill did not mention TikTok blatantly, but proponents are openly confessing that they will be using it to shut down the Chinese social media’s reach in the US should become a law.
However, as pointed out on pages 10 and 11 of the RESTRICT Act final text, the Secretary of Commerce will be empowered to ban anything that they deem a threat to the “digital economy” of the US.
The text said:
“The Secretary… is authorized to and shall take action to identify, deter, disrupt, prevent, prohibit, investigate… any risk arising from any covered transaction by any person, with respect to any property, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States that the Secretary determines—poses an undue or unacceptable risk of… catastrophic effects on the security or resilience of the critical infrastructure or digital economy of the United States.”
The above text is very broad; however, given the recent strict offensives of US regulators against US-based crypto firms, it would not come as a surprise if the US grabs control of crypto transactions — including Bitcoin — in the near future.
