On top of civil asset forfeiture penalties, there are also criminal penalties. Right now according to current law they can imprison you for up to FIVE years for not filling out the form, but apparently that doesn’t go far enough, so this bill aims to double the criminal penalty to TEN years in prison.

Further, their bill wants to pull any business which “issues” cryptocurrency under the anti-money laundering regulatory umbrella. Here’s where these people demonstrate that they have no idea what they’re talking about. No one “issues” Bitcoin. There’s no Bitcoin central bank. There’s no Chairman of Bitcoin who decides on a whim to increase the supply. Bitcoin is created automatically in amounts that are predetermined by its code. So the Senate is essentially trying to force the Bitcoin core software to comply with money laundering regulations.

The bill also attempts to drop a major bomb on Bitcoin by including it in the list of monetary instruments that must be reported when entering or leaving the US.

CALL your congress and House of Representatives and tell them not to pass this bill!