On Tuesday, FinCEN hired Michele Korver as the Chief Digital Currency Advisor. She will advise the Director, Michael Mosier, on cryptocurrency’s role in financial crimes.

The U.S Financial Crimes Enforcement Network named crimes involving the misuse of cryptocurrency as its top priority in 2021.

“Treasury is particularly concerned about cyber-enabled financial crime, ransomware attacks, and the misuse of virtual assets that exploits and undermines their innovative potential, including through laundering of illicit proceeds.”

This step by FinCEN is an effort to curb crypto-related crimes. The press statement of FinCEN following this hiring read, “Ms. Korver will advance FinCEN’s leadership role in the digital currency space by working across internal and external partners toward strategic and innovative solutions to prevent and mitigate illicit financial practices and exploitation,”.

Also Read: Bitcoin-Related Crimes Fell in 2020

Ms. Korver has previously been in numerous roles regarding crypto crime control. She was associated with the US. Department of Justice in the capacity of ‘Digital Currency Counsel’ back in 2017.

Crypto Crimes

The cryptocurrency market has grown massively over the past year. The total market cap of crypto has crossed $1 Trillion. As a result of growth, crypto’s dark side is now a bigger problem than ever before. The decentralized nature of bitcoin and other digital currencies makes them ideal for money laundering. Nevertheless, widespread mainstreaming of crypto will likely decrease such incidents.

Korver wrote a piece on how criminals use crypto in the journal of the Department of Justice. She explained,

“In the early days of cryptocurrency, a great deal of activity was tied to illegal conduct on the dark web, which is why the shuttering of dark web marketplaces could impact the value of bitcoin,…But as mainstream adoption of cryptocurrency has grown, the percentage of transactions used to promote or conceal crime has also decreased.”

The digital currencies are here to stay. Governments are Regulatory organizations are now figuring out the ways around it.