U.S. to Spend $150M Targeting Crypto Scammers

The CLARITY Act would provide $150 million to law enforcement and the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network to trace crypto scammers, expand anti-money-laundering programs, fund blockchain analytics tools and support a pilot for sharing structured threat data between private firms and federal investigators.

The funding is intended to strengthen oversight of digital-asset markets and to help trace illicit flows linked to fraud. The proposal would broaden the requirement for covered trading platforms to file suspicious activity reports and finance tools to map on-chain and off-chain transaction patterns to aid investigations.

The bill tightens rules for digital asset kiosks, including Bitcoin ATMs, and would give kiosk operators a limited safe harbor to pause transactions when law enforcement identifies suspicious activity. The Federal Trade Commission reported about $65 million in losses at Bitcoin ATMs in the first half of 2024, with people age 60 and older bearing roughly 71% of that total.

Federal data show rising crypto fraud. The FBI reports Americans lost about $9.3 billion to crypto-related internet crime in 2024, with victims over 60 accounting for nearly $5 billion of those losses.

Supporters of the CLARITY Act, including Senator Cynthia Lummis and industry groups, back the $150 million figure in advocacy materials and say the funding would improve investigators’ ability to follow suspicious transactions and coordinate with private firms through the pilot program. In a post on X, Senator Cynthia Lummis wrote, “The CLARITY Act delivers $150 million for law enforcement to track down scammers and bad actors in the digital asset space.”

The House passed the CLARITY Act in July 2025 by a vote of 294 to 134. The Senate Banking Committee advanced the measure on May 14 by a 15-9 bipartisan vote, and it now awaits consideration by the full Senate, where backers have pushed for a vote in June. The $150 million figure appears in negotiating materials but does not appear on some committee fact sheets.

Critics, including Senator Elizabeth Warren, cautioned that the framework could leave gaps for illicit finance and that funding alone may not address all regulatory concerns. Lawmakers have discussed a bipartisan follow-up bill to address remaining issues as the CLARITY Act moves toward possible final passage.