No Ban on Crypto Under New Money Laundering Regulation Law in Europe
- If the vote is successful, legislators will commence negotiations with the EU's Council, which represents all member states of the bloc
- Last year, the Council proposed a draft that aimed to prohibit banks and crypto service providers from processing cryptocurrencies that provide anonymity.
The new money laundering prohibition laws in Europe are not going to a
The new money laundering prohibition laws in Europe are not going to affect the likes of cryptocurrencies.
According to a senior lawmaker of the EU, the proposed bill that introduces new regulations to control money laundering and the illegal movement of liquid assets is not going to affect cryptocurrencies in particular.
The Economic and Civil Liberties Committees are set to review the proposed Anti-Money Laundering Regulation, which would introduce a maximum payment threshold of 1,000 euros ($1,080) for transactions originating from self-hosted wallets where the identity of the payer cannot be determined. The bill will be open to voting in the European parliament on Tuesday.
If the vote is successful, legislators will commence negotiations with the EU's Council, which represents all member states of the bloc, to establish a uniform version of the law.
The depth of the discussion that went into this law heightened due to the vulnerability of the virtual assets to criminal activity and money laundering. Nations from around the world are trying to hit the balance between adequate regulation and required breathing for the industry to grow.
Cryptocurrencies are decentralized by nature and none including the government can control the transactions due to their immutability and anonymity. This makes them an efficient tool to be misused for financial accessibility by bad actors. Apart from that, all the transactions on the blockchain are immutable making it extra difficult for law enforcement agencies to retrieve money from illegal transactions.
Last year, the Council proposed a draft that aimed to prohibit banks and crypto service providers from processing cryptocurrencies that provide anonymity. However, Carême, a French lawmaker from the Green party, stated that a ban on cryptocurrencies such as Dash, Monero, and Zcash was unnecessary as they were already prohibited under the EU's Markets in Crypto Assets regulation (MiCA).
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