U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren has called for another U.S. national security investigation into a corner of the cryptocurrency space, specifically citing concerns about PancakeSwap. She labeled the decentralized exchange an attempt to expand cryptocurrencies issued by World Liberty Financial Inc., which has ties to President Donald Trump.
Warren said in a Monday letter to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant and Attorney General Pam Bondi that she said the exchange, which operates on multiple blockchains and is a major protocol on Binance Chain, should be scrutinized for ties to “any inappropriate political influence from the Trump administration on execution decisions,” asking them to investigate the matter, echoing a similar request she made last month regarding WLFI.
“As Congress considers cryptocurrency market structure legislation, including rules to prevent terrorists, criminals, and rogue states from using decentralized finance (DeFi) to fund their activities, it is critical to know whether it is seriously investigating these risks,” Warren wrote.
Warren has been largely sidelined from her committee’s cryptocurrency talks, as a key group of Democratic colleagues have agreed to negotiate with Republicans on a bill to regulate the broader U.S. cryptocurrency market. The process failed to meet industry hopes for action before the end of the year, and Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott said the process will now be on the panel’s agenda in January.
Warren criticized DeFi platforms for “facilitating hundreds of millions of dollars in transactions every day and not requiring users to register or show any form of identification to transact.” The treatment of DeFi remains one of the main issues still to be resolved between parties to the Market Structure Bill, with cryptocurrency insiders describing it as a redline issue that could determine whether the industry supports the final legislation.
Trump’s own administration is unlikely to respond to requests to investigate the president’s business interests. White House officials and the president continue to argue that his cryptocurrency ties do not constitute a conflict of interest.
This is another sticking point in negotiations over the market structure bill – with Democrats demanding a ban on senior government officials pursuing business interests within the industry. Although negotiators from both sides have expressed confidence that a compromise bill can be reached in the Senate, the White House has rejected some initial proposals on this point, raising questions about the progress of negotiations that resume next month.
If negotiations drag on for more than a few weeks in the new year, they could conflict with congressional budget negotiations ahead of a Jan. 30 deadline. Last time, budget disputes shut down the federal government for weeks and further delayed cryptocurrency legislation.
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