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Using descriptive statistical analysis, this study examines trade and investment opportunities between India and 41 African and Asian economies (mostly LDCs) by focusing on the latter's export opportunities in the Indian market and on India's investment opportunities in the selected countries. It also discusses barriers to realizing the identified trade and investment opportunities between India and the selected economies, based on a review of the existing literature. Amongst the sample countries, the top sources of merchandise imports for India over time include Nigeria and Angola from Africa, and Myanmar, Bangladesh and Nepal from Asia. India's main imports from Africa include petroleum oils, precious stones and metals, mineral ores, coal, natural gas, and agricultural products. India's imports from Asia have also been concentrated in few traditional product lines such as jute, fish, gold, petroleum oil, copper ores, ferro-silico, beans, nuts, and non-alcoholic beverages. Thus, the export baskets of the sample countries studied in this report are still not diversified enough to meet the rising demand for consumer and capital goods in India, which points to the immense untapped potential for enhancing these countries' trade and investment relationship with India.

Collaborative innovation become one of the most strategy decision across firms and a well-defined phenomenon that became popular among practitioners and researchers (A. S. Cui O'Connor, 2012; Liu et al., 2017). Many theories were considered to explain collaboration phenomena such as resources-based view, organization theory, strategy, information processing theory, the economic theory of complementarities among others (Barney, 1991; Cassiman Veugelers, 2006; Daft Lengel, 1986; Milgrom Roberts, 1995; Tushman Nadler, 1978). However, technology advances provide new variations in collaboration to innovativeness. For example, collaborative activities with suppliers and customers (Karhade Dong, 2021), community source projects (Liu et al., 2017) or collaboration with distant partners (T. Cui et al., 2020), corporate engagement with startups (Shankar Shepherd, 2019), innovation networks (Aarikka-Stenroos et al., 2017), and innovation ecosystems (Granstrand Holgersson, 2020).Collaborative innovation takes over the existence of an inter-organizational activities executed by people that together perform with high level of interdependence something innovative (T. Cui et al., 2020; Davis Eisenhardt, 2011). Some authors (Adner Kapoor, 2010; T. Cui et al., 2020; Rico et al., 2008) highlight that this interdependence is characterized along two dimensions: technological and behavioral. Technological interdependence is linked to knowledge and the exchange of resources for research and development, and behavioral interdependence is associated with the field of communication, social interaction between collaborative actors and the coordination of these relationships to innovate.Other perspectives in the literature explain and theorize about collaborative innovation as knowledge-sharing trajectories (Majchrzak Malhotra, 2016; Trkman Desouza, 2012), or multi-actor collaboration (Torfing, 2019), or building collaborative capabilities (Swink, 2006) among other approaches. In this editorial, we bring some thoughts and idea about collaborative innovation under a technological perspective to incentive researchers to go beyond in innovative technologies research embedded in collaboration.Collaboration efforts also became a common way of firms to enhance innovations and its technological development with clear determinants about their beneficial effects, and therefore, the literature is well stablished in this subject (Pereira et al., 2018). However, collaboration only succeeds when technological resources and capabilities are combined, and parties define jointly how to enhance and use them accordingly (Snow, 2015).Collaborative innovation as a new technological paradigm refers to a network innovation model supported by interactions of multiple parties such as enterprises, universities and research institutions as core elements and government, financial institutions, nonprofit organizations, intermediaries as auxiliary elements (W. Zhang et al., 2021). Notwithstanding, collaboration networks operating in different organizational levels are present in various patterns and characteristics of evolution, they require different actors and capabilities in the network composition to become a remarkable asset in developing technologies to be patented afterwards in some cases (Gomes et al., 2017).In facing of risks of failures during innovative trajectories, firms invest in collaborative initiatives as an attempt to mitigate cost impacts, share responsibilities and greater technical performance in the process of technology lifecycle development. Thus, technological alliances are useful means to attend these goals (Kim Song, 2007). Technological alliances are critical to enable digital transformation and innovation. Briefly, Zhang et al. (2021) highlight technological alliance as a voluntary interfirm cooperation involving codeveloping technologies through sharing and exchanging of these technologies to meet business needs (W. Zhang et al., 2021).The collaborations in various technological domains help to bring heterogenous knowledge, complementary resources, and capabilities for a better innovation performance (Swink, 2006; W. Zhang et al., 2021). Under the perspective that innovation is essentially knowledge creation (Nonaka, 1994), collaborative innovation through a technological perspective may be configured by different activities, processes, or routines of generation, sharing, integration, and utilization of knowledge produced during the innovation process lifecycle (Nonaka, 1994; W. Zhang et al., 2021). Further, this configuration of activities, processes, or routines support the development of evolutionary technological capabilities (Sampson, 2007).In the field of technological innovations, the evolution now is more collaborative in nature (J. Zhang et al., 2019). Collaboration is a trend for technological prosperity. Analyzing collaborative innovation in the literature is a great challenge even if the focus on technologies is defined because various aspects and applications of collaboration to innovate invade the academic literature in many forms. For instance, Zhou and Ren (2021) analyzed low-carbon technology collaborative innovation in industrial cluster; Shen et al. (2021) studied collaborative innovation in supply chain systems; Wan et al. (2022) highlight that blockchain application intensify collaborative innovation through distributed computing, cryptography and game theory; Li and Zhou (2022) researched on the mechanism of Government–Industry–University–Institute collaborative innovation in green technology; and Fan et al. (2022) pointed out that collaborative innovation also may act as a driver to mobilize and coordinate scientific and technological resources within a city, further promoting innovative development among cities.On the other hand, technological collaborative innovations has its own dark side for firms: it has been costly, it demands money, efforts, and time (Torugsa Arundel, 2016; Wegrich, 2019), and, further, it provokes operational adjustments, technological reconfiguration, and legal barriers to overcome to be effective for innovation (McGuire Agranoff, 2011; Vivona et al., 2022). To address this side of collaborative innovation, Vivona et al. (2022) developed the cost theory to systematize all insights from the literature in four main factors: governance, compactness, reliability, and institutionalization to shed light on a broader range of costs for innovation incurred by collaborative arrangements. Governance refers to relationships in hierarchical level and the number of collaborators involved, reliability refers to relationships' quality; compactness is about the degree of formality in relationships that connect collaborators; and institutionalization that measure what the extent the relationships in practice have been pre-established. This cost perspective may be explored empirically.The decentralization of technological collaborative innovation, its nonlinear, globalized, and networked form transformed its process to more collaborative approaches among entities (Fan et al., 2020). Lopes and Farias (2022) showed that technology tools support the establishment of relationships of trust promoted by leaders committed to well-established goals, being a characteristic of governance that has a positive influence on collaborative innovation processes. Hwang (2020) mentioned that several countries have implemented policies to facilitate technological convergence by supporting collaborative innovations. The author also mentions that collaborative innovation is a crucial strategy to facilitate technological convergence. In sum, firms have been increased collaboration in technological activities and collaboration works as an enabling to learn about turbulent technological change and uncertainties to enhance the ability to deal with innovations (Dodgson, 1993).Technological collaborative innovation is considered essential to promote the flow of resources, knowledge, and technology among entities, considering that innovation is no longer a closed and isolated system. The main premise is technologies do not exist in isolation. Only by exchanging materials, energy, and information with the environment the innovation system be renewed and developed. Therefore, the integrator condition of technological collaborative innovation is also conducive to a more comprehensive disclosure of the collaborative mode and overall performance of technological innovation activities (Fan et al., 2020).Technological collaborative innovation is not a merely coordination of an orderly arrangements of efforts to pursue a common technological purpose (Mooney, 1953), or a merely cooperation to join agreed-on goals into a share comprehension about design systems or reconfigure technological resources (Gulati et al., 2012). It merges cooperation (commitment towards same end) with coordination (complexity to work together effectively) (Vivona et al., 2022). This view may be much more explored by the researchers to enhance the practical aspects of this perspective.In general, collaboration itself does not survive in the face of inevitable behavioral problems which requires an establishment of trust characterized by receptive organizational cultures, community of interest, and continually supplement knowledge for the purpose of collaboration in highly successful technological innovations (Dodgson, 1993). Thus, this can be a new chapter for technological collaborative innovations.

Collaborative Mechanisms, Models, Approaches, Algorithms and Systems -- Decentralized Predictive Enterprise Resource Planning Framework on Private Blockchain Networks using Neural Networks -- Fine-grained Diagnosis Method for Microservice Faults Based on Hierarchical Correlation Analysis -- Two-Stage Clustering for Federated Learning with Pseudo Mini-Batch SGD Training on Non-IID Data -- Elastic Container Scheduling for stochastically arrived workflows in Cloud and Edge Computing -- Modeling Method for Function Trees Guided by the Symmetric Quintuple Implicational Controller -- An adaptive and collaborative method based on GMRA for Intrusion detection -- The Scheduling Model of Forest Fire-Extinguishing Resources and Its Simulation -- Research on Data Dynamic Adjustment Method Considering Security Requirements in Cloud Computing Environment -- Optimal Storage Cloud Data Recoverability Audit Method Based on Regenerative Code -- A Three-Way Group Decision-Making Approach Based on Mixture Risk -- Fog Computing Federated Learning System Framework For Smart Healthcare -- Research on Temporal Workflow Task Assignment Strategy -- Intrusion Detection Algorithm of Industrial Control System Based on Improved Bloom Filter -- A Novel Traversal Search-based D2D Collaborative Offloading Approach for Workflow Application in Dynamic Edge Environment -- A Road Congestion Detection Model Based on Sequence Change of Vehicle Feature Matrix -- Resource Scheduling Method Based on Microservices -- A Novel Construction Approach for Dehazing Dataset Based on Realistic Rendering Engine -- Cooperative Evolutionary Computation and Human-like Intelligent Collaboration -- Differential Evolution Algorithm Based on Adaptive Rank exponent and Parameters -- Information Centrality Evaluation Method Based on Cascade Topological Relevance -- Marine Predators Algorithm with Stage-Based Repairment for the Green Supply Network Design. Compressed-coding Particle Swarm Optimization for Large-scale Feature Selection -- An Attention-based Multiobjective Optimization Evolutionary Algorithm for Community Detection in Attributed Networks -- Kernel Subspace Possibilistic Fuzzy C-Means Algorithm Driven by Feature Weights -- Multi-Loop Adaptive Di↵erential Evolution for LargeScale Expensive Optimization -- Sentiment Analysis of Chinese Complex Long Sentences Based on Reinforcement Learning -- CATS: A Cache Time-to-Live Setting Auto Adjustment Strategy for an Air Ticket Query Service -- Human-Machine Collaboration Based Named Entity Recognition -- Cloud Manufacturing Workflow Scheduling with Learning and Forgetting Effects -- Forecasting Traffic Flow by Learning Local and Global Spatial-Temporal Representations -- A Quantum Evolutionary Algorithm and Its Application to Optimal Dynamic Investment in Market Microstructure Model -- Domain-Specific Collaborative Applications -- A Novel Method of Multi-sensor Information Fusion Based on Comprehensive Conflict Measurement -- Research on the Structure and Key Algorithms of Smart Gloves Oriented to Middle School Experimental Scene Perception -- Minimum-Energy Computation offloading in Mobile Edge Computing with Hybrid PSO-DE Algorithm -- A Semi-supervised Video Object Segmentation Method based on Adaptive Memory Module -- An Improved SSD-based Gastric Cancer Detection Method -- Attention and Multi-Granied Feature Learning for Baggage Re-identification -- Legal Judgement Prediction of Sentence Commutation with Multi-Document Information -- Understanding Expert Knowledge for Chinese Essay Grading -- Autonomous Navigation System for Indoor Mobile Robots Based on a Multi-sensor Fusion Technology -- Inertial Sensor-Based Upper Limb Rehabilitation Auxiliary Equipment and Upper Limb Functional Rehabilitation Evaluation -- An Improved Ant Colony Algorithm for Vehicle Routing Problem with Workload Balance -- Composite Localization for Human Pose Estimation -- The Image-based Automatic Detection Method for Cutter Ring Edge Wear of Shield Machine -- Reinforcement Learning-Based Computation Offloading Approach in VEC 537 -- A Survey on Learning Path Recommendation -- Olfactory Psychological Computation and Olfactory Environment for Human-Machine Collaboration -- Merge Multiscale Attention Mechanism MSGAN-ACNN-BiLSTM Bearing Fault Diagnosis Model -- A Semi-supervised Learning based on Variational Autoencoder for visual-based robot localization.

The purpose of this article is to reveal the structure and innovative potential of the big data industry as a component of China's scientific and technical information system.
The methodology. The research was conducted using a complex of theoretical and empirical methods of scientific knowledge, which made it possible to identify the main components of China's scientific and technical information system, establish its innovative functionality through the identification of the capabilities of national and industry platforms of big data, their aggregators and users. The following scientific approaches were used as a cognitive toolkit for the realization of the set goal: systemic, structural-functional, comparative, as well as research methods: source studying, statistical, modeling, content analysis of the sites of the Documentation and Information Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
The results. Summarizing the achievements of the People's Republic of China in the implementation of the "National Strategy for the Formation of Big Data" made it possible to establish that the key aggregators of this information resource are the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of the People's Republic of China, the Center for Documentation and Information of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the National Center for Innovative Technologies of Engineering Big Data on Earth and Space, the Institute of Aerospace Information Innovations of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the National Astronomical Observatory of China, the Bureau of Geological Survey of the Ministry of Natural Resources of China, the Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Agricultural Resources and Agricultural Zoning of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, which form powerful industrial big data platforms. It is substantiated that the adoption of unified standards and data management protocols and their exchange, guaranteeing data security through the development of powerful technical tools for the protection of digital resources will contribute to increasing the efficiency of the interaction of big data platforms regarding their corporate use. An important organizational measure to accelerate the aggregation and integration of big data is the creation of a national industrial Internet center for big data processing, among the functions of which will be the collection of industrial data, support for their monitoring and analysis, opening of the Center's resources for small and medium-size enterprises, popularization of the possibilities of corporate application of big data in all aspects of the life cycle of production of products and services as a condition for introducing innovations and increasing business competitiveness. The most effective model of the Center's work is a multi-level structure that combines the resources of regional and industry sub-centers of industrial and scientific big data, which will ensure their integration and corporate cooperation of big data aggregators on the creation, processing and use of this powerful innovative resource.
The scientific novelty. For the first time, an idea of the structure, functionality and technologies of China's big data industry was introduced into the scientific circulation, the qualitative features and subjects of the aggregation of scientific and industrial big data were identified, their possibilities for the production of intelligent information products and services were determined, tools for the integration of regional and industry resources were proposed platforms of big data, the prospects of corporate processing and use of big data as a strategic resource for the development of the digital economy were outlined.
The practical significance. The experience of China's development of an innovative infrastructure of powerful scientific and industrial big data platforms, which are analyzed using modern cloud technologies, blockchain and artificial intelligence, and its transformation into a knowledge industry is useful for borrowing by the Ukrainian state system of scientific and technical information.

Dicho proyecto tiene como objetivo el realizar un análisis sobre cuál es el funcionamiento de la regulación energética española, para entender el funcionamiento del método de subastas en España y analizar el soporte regulatorio real que se les ofrece a las instalaciones de energía renovable ; El sistema eléctrico español ha experimentado cambios importantes en las últimas décadas. Sin embargo, esto continuará, el progreso de la tecnología y la regulación / desregulación conducirán a un mayor movimiento y cambios en el mercado. Entre la interrupción que creará la nueva tecnología hay, sin embargo, problemas más inminentes, ya que es probable que sucedan en el corto plazo. La interrupción a largo plazo, como el impacto de los vehículos eléctricos, Internet of Things (IoT), el comercio P2P a través de plataformas como Blockchain y el impacto de los consumidores activos sobre el modelo comercial existente, aún no está claro debido a las grandes incertidumbres que los rodean. Estas incertidumbres se relacionan no solo con los fundamentos del mercado y las estrategias de los actores del mercado, sino también con las barreras regulatorias que podrían no ser fáciles de superar. Los temas mas relevantes en la actualidad en e sistema energético español son los siguientes: Incertidumbres de capacidad convencionales: la decisión de cerrar plantas CCGT, nucleares y carbón. Las decisiones del gobierno español sobre una serie de temas, como qué hacer con los excedentes creados recientemente, y las decisiones políticas sobre cómo proceder con los diferentes impuestos en el sistema eléctrico Nuevo paradigma para las energías renovables: aumento de la capacidad en un entorno de subastas que da lugar a una gran exposición a riesgo de mercado. El sistema español, se liberalizó originalmente en 1997 cuando se introdujo la Ley de Electricidad (54/1997). Desde entonces, el sistema eléctrico en España ha sufrido una transformación bastante relevante que ha causado problemas importantes en todos los niveles. Los problemas que afectaban al gobierno, las empresas de servicios públicos, los usuarios finales, los inversores de renovables, los bancos, etc., ponían en riesgo todo el sistema. Durante todo este período, el gobierno español no estuvo inactivo. En el camino, se publicaron una serie de nuevas reglas y piezas legales con el fin de abordar partes del problema que, sin embargo, siempre fue creciendo. Como resultado de todas las cuestiones acumuladas a lo largo del tiempo, el sistema eléctrico español experimentó una gran transformación durante 2013, cuando el Gobierno español introdujo varios cambios que modificaron la estructura general de la regulación de la electricidad. Este cambio se produjo como la Ley 24/2013 que anuló la antigua Ley 54/1997, y desde una perspectiva de mercado proporciona medios para resolver los problemas relacionados con la fortaleza financiera de la electricidad sistema. Además, también se desarrolló una legislación posterior, el RD 413, que rige sobre las energías renovables. Además, también se introdujeron cambios en la regulación de las redes. Dada la magnitud de las necesidades de inversión en la generación de energía baja en emisiones de carbono para mitigar el efecto invernadero, la disponibilidad y el coste de capital es crucial para una transición energética se desarrolle con éxito. Recientemente, se ha podido observar un fuerte aumento de la financiación de proyectos sin recurso para los proyectos de generación de energía. Sin embargo, los cambios políticos y regulatorios que se han desarrollado en España han trucando o están truncando muchas posibles financiaciones para nuevos proyectos. El nuevo escenario de las subastas ha introducido mucha incertidumbre sobre cual es el soporte regulatorio real que tienen o pueden tener los nuevos proyectos de energía renovable. Este documento evalúa la importancia de la financiación de proyectos para proyectos de energía renovable, y los factores subyacentes para usar este tipo de financiación. Los cambios ocurridos en el sector eléctrico español desde 1997, la falta de garantía de la estabilidad financiera del sistema eléctrico y la dispersión regulatoria llevaron al Gobierno español a aprobar una nueva ley del sector eléctrico en diciembre de 2013 ("LSE"). Se discuten las implicaciones de los cambios regulatorios que ha habido recientemente en el sector, y como eso puede afectar a la financiación de los proyectos. También analiza el panorama financiero de las energías renovables y describe las tendencias clave a nivel mundial, examina las diferentes funciones y enfoques de la financiación, destaca el importante papel de los instrumentos de mitigación de riesgos y proporciona una perspectiva para la financiación de energías renovables en 2018 y más adelante en España. ; The Spanish electricity system has undergone significant changes in recent decades. However, this will continue, the progress of technology and regulation / deregulation will lead to greater movement and changes in the market. However, there are more imminent problems between the interruption that the new technology will create, since they are likely to happen in the short term. The long-term interruption, such as the impact of electric vehicles, Internet of Things (IoT), P2P trade through platforms such as Blockchain and the impact of active consumers on the existing business model, is not yet clear due to the great uncertainties that surround them. These uncertainties are related not only to market fundamentals and the strategies of market players, but also to regulatory barriers that may not be easy to overcome. The most relevant issues at present in the Spanish energy system are the following: Conventional capacity uncertainties: the decision to close CCGT, nuclear and coal plants. The decisions of the Spanish government on a series of topics, such as what to do with the surpluses created recently, and the political decisions on how to proceed with the different taxes on the electricity system New paradigm for renewable energies: increases in capacity in an auction environment that leads to a large exposure to market risk. The Spanish system was originally liberalized in 1997 when the Electricity Law was introduced (54/1997). Since then, the electrical system in Spain has undergone a quite relevant transformation that has caused important problems at all levels. The problems that affected the government, utilities, end users, renewables investors, banks, etc., put the whole system at risk. Throughout this period, the Spanish government was not inactive. Along the way, a series of new rules and legal pieces were published in order to address parts of the problem that, however, was always growing. As a result of all the issues accumulated over time, the Spanish electricity system underwent a major transformation during 2013, when the Spanish government introduced several changes that modified the general structure of electricity regulation. This change occurred as Law 24/2013 that annulled the old Law 54/1997, and from a market perspective provides means to solve the problems related to the financial strength of the electricity system. In addition, a subsequent legislation was also developed, RD 413, which governs renewable energies. In addition, changes were also introduced in the regulation of networks. Given the magnitude of the investment needs in the generation of low carbon energy to mitigate the greenhouse effect, availability and the cost of capital is crucial for an energy transition to develop successfully. Recently, it has been possible to observe a strong increase in the financing of non-recourse projects for power generation projects. However, the political and regulatory changes that have taken place in Spain have trickled or are truncating many possible financings for new projects. The new auction scenario has introduced a lot of uncertainty about the actual regulatory support that new renewable energy projects have or can have. This document assesses the importance of project financing for renewable energy projects, and the underlying factors for using this type of financing. The changes occurred in the Spanish electricity sector since 1997, the lack of guarantee of the financial stability of the electricity system and the regulatory dispersion led the Spanish Government to approve a new electric sector law in December 2013 ("LSE"). The implications of the regulatory changes that have recently occurred in the sector are discussed, and how that can affect the financing of the projects. It also analyzes the financial landscape of renewable energies and describes key trends worldwide, examines the different functions and approaches to financing, highlights the important role of risk mitigation instruments and provides a perspective for the financing of renewable energies in 2018 and later in Spain.

Nicholas Anthony


Senators Cynthia Lummis (R‑WY) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D‑NY) introduced an updated version of their Responsible Financial Innovation Act. The bulk of the bill addresses issues around market structure and cryptocurrency exchanges—issues my colleagues Jack Solowey and Jennifer Schulp have discussed at length. Yet, within the bill also lies an interesting section on combatting illicit finance within the cryptocurrency market.
What makes this section so interesting is that Senators Lummis and Gillibrand appear to have largely adopted this section from a separate bill introduced by Senators Elizabeth Warren (D‑MA) and Roger Marshall (R‑KS). In fact, all four senators just joined hands to introduce this section as a standalone amendment to this year's National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). As many might remember, the Warren‐​Marshall bill received a nearly instant wave of criticism from Cato, Coin Center, Bitcoin Policy Institute, Bitcoin Magazine, Filecoin Foundation, and many others when it was first introduced.
Coin Center's Peter Van Valkenburgh wrote, "The bipartisan Digital Asset Anti‐​Money Laundering Act, introduced today by Sens. Warren and Marshall, is the most direct attack on the personal freedom and privacy of cryptocurrency users and developers we've yet seen." Filecoin's Marta Belcher wrote, "The bill would also effectively ban privacy‐​enhancing technologies in blockchain networks. The bill is a disaster for digital privacy and civil liberties."
A cursory look at the bill makes it easy to see why everyone was so concerned. The Warren‐​Marshall bill proposed expanding anti‐​money laundering (AML) and know‐​your‐​customer (KYC) surveillance to self‐​hosted wallets and cryptocurrency ATMs as well as effectively setting a prohibition on the use of cryptocurrency mixers. The bill also proposed having the Treasury, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) levy new examination and review processes on the companies they oversee. Finally, the bill proposed a requirement for Americans to report to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) if they transact more than $10,000 in cryptocurrency if at least one party in the transaction is outside the United States. As Valkenburgh and Belcher said at the time, it was a direct attack on digital privacy and civil liberties.
How the Two Bills Stack Up
The good news is that the new Lummis‐​Gillibrand bill did not copy the Warren‐​Marshall bill entirely. The Lummis‐​Gillibrand bill would not necessarily expand surveillance to self‐​hosted wallets, prohibit the use of cryptocurrency mixers, or force Americans to report cross‐​border transactions over $10,000. The bad news is that the Lummis‐​Gillibrand bill did pick up other pieces of the Warren‐​Marshall bill (see Figure 1).












Like the Warren‐​Marshall bill, the Lummis‐​Gillibrand bill would require cryptocurrency ATMs to "verify the identity of each customer using a valid form of government‐​issued identification or other documentary method, as determined by the Secretary of the Treasury." The bill would also require owners of cryptocurrency ATMs to report the physical location of ATMs to FinCEN every four months. Targeting ATMs may not be as severe as surveilling self‐​hosted wallets and effectively prohibiting mixers, but it's important to recognize that requiring cryptocurrency users to have their identities verified is still taking a stance against financial privacy.
The Lummis‐​Gillibrand bill also adopted the Warren‐​Marshall proposal to have the Treasury, SEC, and CFTC create new "risk‐​focused examination and review" processes for the companies they oversee. These examinations would be intended to monitor how companies are complying with anti‐​money laundering requirements. Considering compliance is already estimated to cost financial institutions $46 billion a year in the United States to stop an unknown amount of crime, it's unclear what exactly this added burden will contribute, especially since the specifics are left for the agencies to determine.
Where the Warren‐​Marshall bill would have prohibited the use of cryptocurrency mixers, the Lummis‐​Gillibrand bill takes a more nuanced approach by instead requiring FinCEN to issue a report to Congress that explains how mixers are used in markets currently and to make recommendations on possible future legislation. This approach is better than the prohibition proposed by the Warren‐​Marshall bill. However, this approach will require watchful eyes on the part of the public. On the one hand, the report could easily give FinCEN another tool to argue for further expanding its authority over financial transactions. On the other hand, the report could result in essentially kicking a prohibition to a later date.
Beyond Warren and Marshall
The Lummis‐​Gillibrand bill also makes a few unique additions of its own outside of what was adopted from the Warren‐​Marshall bill.
Notably, the section on combatting illicit finance opens with an amendment on penalties for cryptocurrency related crimes. By amending 12 U.S.C. Section 1957, the Lummis‐​Gillibrand bill would make it so violations of financial recordkeeping laws (12 U.S.C. Chapter 21) where cryptocurrency is involved can lead to additional punishments with up to $10,000 in fines and up to five years in prison. It's possible this provision is partly a response to the fall of FTX given it raises the stakes for keeping proper accounting standards.
The Lummis‐​Gillibrand bill would also see to the creation of a working group dedicated to crafting proposals to combat illicit finance. The group would include officials from both law enforcement and regulatory agencies as well as businesses working on cryptocurrency technology, financial institutions, and research organizations. Within this theme, the bill would also require the President to issue a separate, public report. Although exchanging ideas in an open manner is commendable, it's unfortunate that legislation is required to make that happen. (Though, perhaps that's more so a commentary on politics at large.)
Continuing the theme of opening new dialogues, the Lummis‐​Gillibrand bill would create an "Innovation Laboratory" within FinCEN. The laboratory would be dedicated to promoting "regulatory dialogue, data sharing between the FinCEN and financial companies, and an assessment of potential changes in law, rules, or policies to facilitate the appropriate supervision." This idea might sound nice to some, but FinCEN's history of repeatedly refusing to provide data to prove the effectiveness of anti‐​money laundering surveillance in general makes it hard to have faith in the agency's ability to live up to what the senators have in mind. One may be comforted because it's a statutory requirement, but events earlier this year have shown that statutory requirements have still not been enough to get real answers about the effectiveness of anti‐​money laundering requirements.
Finally, although it was not in the section on combatting illicit finance, it's worth mentioning that the Lummis‐​Gillibrand bill does address self‐​hosted wallets elsewhere in the bill. When discussing risk management, the bill says that the CFTC and the SEC must create standards regarding money laundering, customer identification, and sanctions compliance for exchanges dealing with self‐​hosted wallets. This move is not the same assault levied by the Warren‐​Marshall bill. Yet, at the same time, it is concerning that these rules are being left open for regulators to decide and will require watchful eyes if it comes to fruition.
Conclusion
Taken together, the Lummis‐​Gillibrand approach may not be as concerning as the Warren‐​Marshall bill, but that is not to say it is not concerning at all. Although Senators Warren and Marshall sought to take a leap forward for expanding financial surveillance, Senators Lummis and Gillibrand are still creeping forward by pushing forth these proposals. It's for that reason that the Lummis‐​Gillibrand and Warren‐​Marshall alliance should be concerning for advocates of privacy and freedom.
It was only a few months ago that Senator Warren was described as "building an anti‐​crypto army." The fact that her proposals spreading, even in limited form, should give people pause to ask if that army isn't growing. The new bill is not the full assault from last year, but it also isn't a retreat.
As debates move forward on both this bill and the recent NDAA amendment, it will be important for the public to keep a watchful eye.