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The cryptocurrency industry has been lobbying U.S. lawmakers against legislation designed to prevent Russian oligarchs from using cryptocurrencies to evade sanctions imposed on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s allies and their companies following Russia’s attack on Ukraine.

The U.S. House and Senate saw two bills introduced giving Biden administration the power to prohibit the U.S. crypto exchanges from processing Russian-related payments. It would also allow U.S. authorities to sanction foreign exchanges that process sanctioned Russian people’s transactions. 

A group that consists of 70 crypto platforms including Ripple, Crypto.com, and Dragonfly Capital, says it’s helping Congress “separate fact from fiction on the inability of Russia to transfer large sums of money via crypto transactions in order to evade sanctions,” according to an email from Curtis Kincaid, the group’s spokesman. 

“The crypto industry fancies itself as an alternative financial system, an alternative bank. Banks have been sanctioned left, right, and center and banks are pulling out of Russia,” Democratic Rep. John Garamendi of California, who is a co-sponsor of the House bill, told CNBC in a recent interview. “So if they fancy themselves a financial mechanism, then they’re in the same league, the same situation, as Bank of America or a Russian bank.”

The Digital Asset Sanctions Compliance Enhancement Act of 2022 is also designed “to impose sanctions with respect to the use of cryptocurrency to facilitate transactions by Russian persons subject to sanctions,” according to a summary of the bill.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who is a member of the powerful Senate Finance and Banking committees, recently told National Public Radio that the bill is supposed to give the Treasury Department the tools to step up its oversight of crypto platforms.

“Russian oligarchs can continue to use crypto to move their money around. So we’re just going to give Treasury the authorization to treat these crypto platforms much like the banks are treated. That is, you’ve got to know your customer and you can’t be dealing with people who are in violation of sanctions,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren said during an interview last month.

“It’s no surprise that the unregulated crypto industry has deep pockets and an army of lobbyists who are fighting against basic rules to keep consumers safe, but it’s shocking that they would also work to undermine U.S. national security and our sanctions regime against Russia,” Warren said in an emailed statement.