# US Treasury and the Working Group

> US Treasury and the Working Group (US Treasury · President's Working Group on Digital Asset Markets): The first federal endorsement of privacy technology. Region: Americas. Builds with privacy tech: The regime itself mandates, pilots or funds privacy-preserving technology.

Part of the Soda Labs Privacy Hub regulation map, which reads the instruments
themselves rather than summarising the summaries: https://www.sodalabs.xyz/privacy-hub/regulation

## Key facts

- Entry type: Regulator or standard-setter
- Region: Americas
- Subject: The first federal endorsement of privacy technology
- Authority: US Treasury · President's Working Group on Digital Asset Markets
- Stance on on-chain confidentiality: Builds with privacy tech. The regime itself mandates, pilots or funds privacy-preserving technology.
- Tags: zero-knowledge proofs, digital identity, verifiable credentials, guidance pending
- Canonical page: https://www.sodalabs.xyz/privacy-hub/regulation/reg-us-treasury-pwg

## What it actually says

The most significant shift in this section, and the one most easily overstated. Official US government documents now treat privacy-preserving technology as part of the compliance toolkit rather than an obstacle to it. The 2025 Working Group report prioritises privacy and civil liberties, encourages privacy-preserving digital identity for customer verification, and concedes the technical and legal difficulty of enforcing obligations on privacy-enhancing protocols. Treasury's March 2026 report to Congress goes further, describing zero-knowledge credentials as a way to streamline compliance without over-collecting, and commits to issuing guidance on verifiable credentials. Read it as direction of travel and not as permission: every pro-privacy statement sits alongside an intact anti-money-laundering obligation, and the guidance has not been published.

## The instruments that matter

- **Working Group report, 30 July 2025**: Strengthening American Leadership in Digital Financial Technology; prioritises privacy and civil liberties, encourages privacy-preserving digital identity tools for customer verification, and acknowledges the difficulty of enforcing obligations on privacy-enhancing protocols
- **Treasury request for comment, 18 August 2025**: issued under GENIUS Act section 9, asking about portable digital identity credentials designed to maximise user privacy and about the privacy risk of what is collected
- **Report to Congress, March 2026**: describes credentials using zero-knowledge proofs as having the potential to streamline compliance without over-collecting information
- **The adopted commitment**: Treasury will issue guidance to financial institutions on using verifiable digital credentials consistent with existing customer identification programmes; not yet issued

## Sources

- [Working Group report](https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/digital-Assets-Report-EO14178.pdf)
- [Treasury request for comment](https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2025-08-18/html/2025-15697.htm)

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- [NYDFS](https://www.sodalabs.xyz/privacy-hub/regulation/reg-nydfs): The most privacy-restrictive US regulator, state or federal