New York State Senate Issues a Bill To Limit Digital Assets Crimes

The New York State Senate introduced a bill to limit digital assets crimes. Senate Bill S8839 was introduced on Wednesday by Senator Kevin Thomas, and it is now referred to the committee for approval.

As an official summary, the bill “establishes the offenses of virtual token fraud, illegal rug pulls, private key fraud, and fraudulent failure to disclose interest in virtual tokens.” The bill was also announced under the title, “[a]n act to amend the penal law, in relation to establishing certain offenses relating to crypto fraud.”

This came as a reaction to the increasing digital crimes, including rug pulls, private key fraud, virtual token fraud, and fraudulent failure to disclose interest in virtual tokens. News reported several rug pulls during the last month, along with many hacks that targeted both exchanges and holders of crypto and NFTs.

The bill suggests a civil fine of no more than five million dollars or service in prison for no longer than 20 years or both, yet the original paper added, “except where such a person is a person other than a natural person, a fine not exceeding twenty-five million dollars.” This condition is attributed to the knowledge that a natural person is an individual, while a legal person could be a private or public company.

In relation to the news, this bill follows another bill—Bill A6389C—issued on April 26, 2022, and summarized as a regulation “[establishing] a moratorium on cryptocurrency mining operations that use proof-of-work authentication methods to validate blockchain transactions; provides that such operations shall be subject to a full generic environmental impact statement review.”