This week, there was new activity in the US Congress—an earlier shelved crypto market bill was brought back to the agenda, and a particular clause has sparked quite a stir.

Where is the controversy centered? The Treasury Department wants to collaborate with the SEC, CFTC, and Federal Reserve to directly blacklist certain decentralized finance protocols, making them inaccessible to US users. The official reason is national security, but once this was announced, the industry exploded.

There are many objections. Some pointed out that this effectively grants the Treasury Department "sanction-level authority" without proper procedural checks. In other words, the privacy and rights of users and developers could be overlooked. Remember the Tornado Cash incident? Similar enforcement modes could harm neutral infrastructure and innocent participants.

Additionally, the bill requires an annual DeFi risk assessment report, which seems standard, but the specific evaluation criteria are still vague. This gives enforcement agencies significant discretion.

The attitudes of the two parties are also quite different: Republicans mainly want to loosen regulations and encourage innovation; Democrats tend to tighten controls, aiming to strengthen oversight of illegal financial activities and even hold developers accountable. Behind this divide, it actually reflects issues of power division and checks and balances—who watches the Treasury Department to prevent overreach?