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Trump Bans Venezuela's New National Cryptocurrency (cnbc.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: President Donald Trump issued an executive order Monday banning any transactions within the United States involving any digital currency issued by, for, or on behalf of the Government of Venezuela. The order applies to U.S. citizens as well as anyone within the United States, and includes cryptocurrency issued on or after January 9. President Trump's order is in response to recent attempts by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's regime to "circumvent U.S. sanctions by issuing a digital currency," the White House said in a statement. Venezuela launched its oil-backed cryptocurrency in February to help pull the country out of a continuing economic crisis. President Maduro said each petro token will be backed by one barrel of the state's national petroleum. Maduro also said roughly 100 million tokens would be issued -- estimated to be worth around $6 billion. Bitcoin prices dropped about $200 to around $8,388, according to Coinbase, following the order.
I'm going to say no. He's not telling the government what to do. He's trying to make something illegal (aka against the law).
He's trying to cite emergency powers:
International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.) (IEEPA), the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.)
And I think it would be awfully hard to call this a national emergency for us. On the other hand, it was Barack Obama that called it an emergency, and this new executive order merely cites it: https://www.federalregister.go...
So yes, these executive orders are getting out of hand.
The embargo of trade with Cuba was initiated by an executive order, so there's strong precedence for it.
"Banning" cryptocurrency is akin to trying to ban Math. Yeah, good luck with that.
Banning math is not exactly new.
I'm not exactly certain that Lord Trump can tell me what I can and can't spend my money on. Last time I checked Congress made the laws, not the office of the President.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
Typical comment section troll; has no idea of the contents that he's commenting on. As all other executive orders do, this executive order lists the laws cited in the first paragraph: "By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.) (IEEPA), the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.), and section 301 of title 3, United States Code,"
Congress already gave him the authority: 50 U.S. Code  1701 and 50 U.S. Code  1702
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
Per executive order 13692, you cannot send any property to Venezuela. The IRS considers cryptocurrencies as property. Thus trading - sending or buying - in Venezuelan crypto is not legal. Unless, of course, the underlying executive order is illegal - but that's not been determined yet.
Based on the above, it is quite clear that President Trump didn't add anything new, just explicitly listed Venezuela's cryptocurrency as banned - which it already was, per the earlier EO and existing IRS statutes.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!