Senator Smith: A Reuters article of May 2021 noted that Iran, a heavily sanctioned country, had adopted bitcoin mining and was generating revenues equivalent to $1 billion at the time. The blockchain analytics company Elliptic, which provided the data, wrote in their blog post:

The Iranian state is . . . effectively selling its energy reserves on the global markets, using the Bitcoin mining process to bypass trade embargoes.

Again, Senator Gold, I would ask if you could follow-up and provide information to this body because I think it’s an important task for the government to ensure that we’re doing everything in our power to prevent individuals and governments that have been mentioned in this Ukraine war from using crypto-currencies to evade sanctions.