Banning digital currencies such as bitcoin would not help in preventing financing of terrorism activities, a Republican member of the US House of Representatives said last week, CoinDesk reported.

Speaking during a floor debate on the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act, Congressman Dana Rohrabacher said while digital currencies could potentially benefit society by offering new ways of fighting inflation and handling personal business obligations, they also pose a number of threats.

“Indeed, the security of the blockchain technology will enable a new wave of societal advances that should invigorate our markets and improve lives”, Rohrabacher said, according to the transcript. “However with that potential benefit of digital currency, there is also danger.”

He noted that the law enforcement agencies are aware that bitcoin, with its unique feature of anonymity, is available for use by terrorist organisations. While pointing out the ban on digital currencies by a number of countries, Rohrabacher said:

“Banning digital currencies will not prevent terrorists from using them any more than banning guns will prevent criminals from using them. Instead of banning all the digital currencies because [of] some lack standards, I believe we should encourage digital currencies to implement full money laundering and know your customer standards.”

Further, he urged lawmakers to make efforts in order to place the United States in the forefront of technological development.

“With the proper type of regulatory looks and seeing what options are available to us, we can prevent terrorists and criminals from financing their operations with bitcoins, but still, the rest of us will be free to use these new digital currencies and enable America to keep the lead in the world in this new technological advance, he said. “I look forward to joining with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to encourage economic innovation brought by the bitcoins, but also to see to it that digital currencies will have strong standards that will thwart the exploitation of this new economic function by terrorists and criminals and other evil forces in the world.”

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