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U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin says the federal government is concerned about the use of bitcoin in the illicit markets of black cloth.
In an interview with Yahoo Finance Mnuchin stated that bitcoin is on the radar of the Treasury Department and that it is in conversation with regulators at around the world on the right approach to ensure that it is not used to perform "illicit fund transfers".
"It's something we look at very carefully and we will continue to watch," said Mnuchin. "The first problem and the biggest problem is to make sure that people can not use Bitcoin for illicit activities, so we want to make sure that you do not have the dark web funded in bitcoins. And it's something that concerns us today. "
He pointed out that although the Treasury does not have a clear timetable for the announcement of an official position on cryptocurrency or new regulations to govern this class of Fledgling assets, the department has set up working groups.
"And again [bitcoin is] something we will watch very carefully," he said.
The Treasury is one of many US regulators that are beginning to play a more active role in regulating cryptocurrency markets. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has publicly voiced its concerns regarding initial offers of coins (ICOs), many of which could violate federal securities laws. Similarly, the SEC has warned that celebrity ICO endorsements may be illegal in some cases if the token is later considered a title.
This year's meteoric bitcoin price rally, meanwhile, has attracted the attention of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), which claims that too few people report income from Cryptocurrency investments in their tax returns. Earlier this year, a report revealed that the agency has paid thousands of dollars to a traceability firm to help them locate and identify bitcoin tax cheats. In addition, the IRS has filed a lawsuit against Bitcoin Coinbase to try to force the company to hand over client files so that they can prosecute bitcoin scammers.
Featured image from Flickr / International Monetary Fund.