EU Cracks Down on Anonymous Crypto Wallets

According to a fresh release, companies that transfer BTC or other cryptocurrencies must collect information about the senders and recipients if proposed EU regulations come into force.

• In a bid to end anonymous cryptocurrency wallets, the Europoean Commission has proposed a law that would require companies that transfer BTC and other cryptos to collect information about the sender and the receiver.
• This, according to a recent press release, aims to crack down on illicit activities associated with cryptocurrencies.
• The commission argued that:

“Today’s amendments will ensure full traceability of crypto-asset transfers, such as bitcoin, and will allow for prevention and detection of their possible use for money laundering or terrorism financing,”

• Some of the information that should be collected include the customer’s name, address, date of birth, account number, as well as the name of the person who would receive the assets.
• The Commission also said that this proposal aims to “find the right balance between addressing these threats and complying with international standards while not creating an excessive regulatory burden on the industry.”
• While EU states and the Parliament have the final say on the suggested regulations, it remains unclear exactly how these rules will actually be enforceable.
• A lot of the non-custodial cryptocurrency wallets are open-sourced, and barring users from accessing them would be challenging, to say the least.