Bitcoin Forum

Stumbled upon this article today.

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/security/20180404STO00913/plenary-vote-stricter-eu-rules-on-money-laundering-and-terrorism-financing

According to the European Parliament, in order to fight money laundering and terrorism financing, they proposed a new legislation to regulate cryptocurrencies. Quoting from the article:


In simple words, they actually want wallet providers to require more information from us, similar to banks.

What are your thoughts on this? Could this ever happen?

This can be very big.

When reading the sentence: “those who keep bitcoins in their wallet” it is not clear to me if that affects to hardware wallets for example. They could ask Trezor and Ledger to know their customers before selling and to hand over their data to the EU. I’ve read the article but can’t find an explanation. Until now we thought that regulation was going to reach exchanges, but we also thought that we would have some freedom using wallets.

I think because of that monero cannot be listed on coinbase etc. But rather on decentralized exchanges. It may make them less valuable in the future, I don't think they will be valuable while no central authority sympathises it.

Is it really new thing or the old one. I mean isn't our regional wallets are already asking for the KYC documents before we could start the transaction on the same? I mean I know this one is about the exchanger itself but to reach the exchanger we need money from our wallets, and wallets can be tracked with KYC info and thus it becomes completely transparent too.

If exchangers started asking for the more info which would be obvious the KYC's then also it will be the same thing as before only the mega difference would be "we will need to pay taxes on every dime that we are earning online". I mean unlike today where we can earn from bounties, trade online and keep the BTC over there only hides our wealth 100% but after this rule it wont happen. So its kind of bad thing.

It's impossible, it's fighting against windmills. If they control one coin, we can simply create another one - completely anonymous.

EU is working hard on privacy, blockchain and cryptocurrencies. With regards to this article, I think they want to track activities mostly for tax purposes. Terrorism is just an excuse: terrorists are much more likely to use USD or EUR than crypto

Thats really interesting article to read. Yes I do believe that this change will be good one for the peoples around the globe. The terrorism acts can not be tacked with it but off course the mega transaction can be traced out with it. There are only few instances when the mega transaction will occur in the first place. The first one could be about the richest guy withdrawing his money, second one could be exchanger transaction itself and the last one could be suspicious activities like those mentioned in the article itself. So if EU successfully implement this thing then there could be chances that it will be helpful for tracing it.

 
Off course many possibilities could be taken from this one. They might just do both the things together.

This would be difficult to really implement considering the rate at which cryptocurrencies are growing and how big of a market it has already become. Like another user mentioned, hardware wallets exist too, and those can easily change hands many times after the original purchase (regulating the POS/companies that sell hardware wallets [which are essentially encrypted flash drives]).

What is then the need of decentralized privacy monetary transactions when privacy is being altered? I don't know if this story is really genuine, but if it is, then it makes no sense to own digital coins anymore. What we need is regulations in cryptocurrency which will help to reduce fraud activities in digital coins (if that is truly their intention). If they can't provide that then its of no use.

Regulation of cryptocurrencies is indeed an issue faced by the majority of countries governments as they just find it as a threat as cryptocurrencies can be used as a tool to hide loads of black money, save one from paying taxes, utilization of those currencies in illegal activities could increase resulting in an indirect way to the lives of the common people. If some centralization is done to the crypto world then that would help the government to at least keep a track of where exactly is bitcoin actually circulating and allowing them to minimize its usage for any dark activity.

The EU's idea of digital money purse is hard to really carry out. But we can understand this news. Now the European Union countries are paying more and more attention to digital currency. As we all know, the European Union's economy has been very bad in the past ten years. They may be eager to find new economic engines by using bitcoin as a breakthrough.

Yup, if there were actual regulators, then the people would just end up creating different coins. It's the cat-mouse game here. I guess the only issue I could see coming out of this would be that the general population would need to be alerted of the creation of a new coin. People have to actually start supporting that new coin, and that could be a dangerous game. People in general hate change, and to swap their holdings to a new coin, which might not seem too much for you and I, would be a huge change for the average Joe. Regulations would definitely hurt the coins price, but I don't think it would mean the coin is done for.

This is a two edged sword.

For one, any governmental control goes against the fundamental philosophy of bitcoin.

But on the other hand, this shows that politicians start taking cryptocurrencies seriously.

On the whole though, I think this is a good development. It requires some give and take, but if it's done properly, it will give users some protection similar to that found in regulated markets, while not giving up too much of the privacy and anonymity afforded by crypto currencies. Furthermore, such an at least "weakly" regulated market is essential for broad adoption by mainstream businesses, which in turn is essential for cryptocurrencies to reach the next growth segment.

The point is that Monero shouldn't be listed on any centralized exchange if we purely look at its main purpose, which is offering an extra layer of privacy. If you plan to buy Monero through whatever centralized exchange for that purpose, and think logically, you don't have any privacy already at that point, so it's pointless to even proceed buying Monero. If centralized exchanges at some point will decide to not list it at all, or to even remove it due to regulatory pressure, the value will definitely take a hit if people aren't switching to decentralized exchanges to keep trading it. It's probably the only altcoin I actually like for its features. Privacy is a very important aspect, but one that not many people appreciate at this stage, which is sad.

Well, they pretty much know that already.
Most exchanges licensed in the EU require AML and KYC and either way, the transfers of fiat are recorded already by the banks, so there is little you can hide there.



The term that is most important I think is custodian :

So Trezor isn't qualifying for this if we consider that they don't really hold control over your funds. They are more like strongbox sellers than a bank lending you a strongbox.
At least that would be the interpretation here.

From my point of view this one can be neglected as people should start learning not to keep their coins on a 3rd party wallet service or platform or whatever.

Bitcoin gave us the possibility of being a bank, why stuff the safe in a bank and on top of that give them the code and the keys?

What about Dash and Zcash they also offer superior privacy.

The whole thing about counteracting the anonymity of crypto
Goes against the findamentals of it but I understand the need
to counteract illegal activity.

Wouldnt mixing transactions trump any steps put in place to
Counteract illegal activity?

Definitely, governments are taking into account the widespread and resilience of cryptocurrencies, thus trying to take action to either halt their advance or actually legislate measures that will also help cryptocurrencies develop in the advanced world.

 That way, with the interference of governments, it could also become a way of payment one day, providing that they don't want to halt their advance, which is highly unlikely now, due to their nature and accomplishments, rendering too late to actually fight them.

your analysis may be true, because bitcoin will be good in the future, so indeed this is a breakthrough to improve the economy in EU, we can imagine if they go early and btc soaring, it really helps economy in that EU country

At the beginning of your post to say correctly. It is contrary to all what was created by bitcoin. To allow the legalization of cryptocurrencies is a betrayal. I think you're wrong. Any regulation of the cryptocurrency from the state will lead to a decline in demand. Moreover, it can kill bitcoin. We can't let that happen.

If that is the case then people will begin to avoid hardware wallets as well, when it's obvious that regulation is coming it seems that governments are not realizing how difficult it is going to be to go against bitcoin cryptocurrencies, does that mean they want that even desktop wallets require you to identify yourself before you are allowed to download the software? Because that is not going to happen.

The EU wants to secure the operation of bitcoin and regulation of digital currency before they start investing as a unit. They want to protect their euro currency.

They were commenting a tighter legislation rules from months.
This will only lead to more and better Decentralized Exchanges (DEX). I'm supporting it somehow. Because now I'm paying Capital Gain Tax anyway.

We needed them to regulate cryptocurrency not make it as something equivalent to a local currency. If they are talking  more about identity verification in exchange for traders, then, it's not a new thing cause we already have it. But for identity verification for every bitcoin or any cryptocurrency spent, then it's unacceptable. It's like wanting  to control every investor and how they spend their coins.

Definitely just for the taxes, the EU is tanking and would like to squeeze as much money from people. Somebody mentioned about hardware wallets, that would seem to be a harder one to regulate compared to exchanges. Even if they require retailers KYC, since these are physical objects, it's possible you can just say it got "stolen". They also might have a hard time tracking down money in the deep, basically those that were bought f2f and never passed through exchanges.


But of course they'll never say that. They'll never emphasize that remittance companies like Western Union and banks like HSBC has admitted to laundering money to who knows where and only got off with fines, basically slap on the wrist. Crypto is a good scapegoat since not everyone's familiar with it. Fear of the unknown.

This would happen, easily. Bittrex did it. Poloniex did it. Soon other exchanges did it.
If EU wants KYC details, they can get it only from the exchanges in EU. They won't be able to get the KYC details from overseas exchanges unless subpoenad. There's a loophole in everything.  ;)

I see your point, but I strongly disagree. Even if we give up the idea of complete privacy and anonymity in cryptocurrencies and accept some level of state control to combat money laundering and tax evasion, crypocurrencies still provide useful features normal money can't and the decentralized blockchain can be a formidable competitor to normal payment systems.

At the end there needs to be a compromise. States will not allow the growth of the cryptocurrency market and it's ecosystem without having some form of control over it. And as long as that control is the minimal amount of control to prevent illegal activities, I for one am fine with that. This does not lead to the supply of cryptos being managed by central bank, and thus THAT aspect of Satoshis principle still remains in tact.

I have argued on another thread already that without allowing some form of state control / transparency bitcoin and cryptos will never become a major factor in the economy and will remain a fairly marginal toy. States can easily turn off any in- and out-bound flows to and from the crypto ecosystem. Ask yourself the simple question what would happen if it would be impossible to legally move fiat (say USD) into and out of the crypto markets?  Any holdings in crypto currency would be stuck (businesses would refuse to sell goods, as they can't turn cryptos into fiat either) and there would be never any new money flowing into crypto either. Scary? Well, all it takes is for the major national regulators to establish a few simple restrictions for financial institutions to allow any related transactions.

So rather than saying that with regulation bitcoin will die, I believe the opposite to be true, which taht without accepting some regulation, cryptocurrencies cannot survive.

The European Union wants to make a smart move on the crypto market. This implementation is to secure the cryptocurrency for them to take hold of it. It's quite unclear how they are going to achieve this KYC on exchanges and for the wallet developers because most of these bodies operate outside their jurisdiction.

Who cares there are already existing exchanges which are not completely regulated and it clear that in the coming future as well there is no way there are going to regulate it , I'm not against the idea of regulations but making it same like banks is the worst idea they should try to make something unique which satisfies us as well as them

I still hope that KYC will be used in good things and I know EU can’t control this market since exchanges are beyond their jurisdiction. Maybe EU wants to regulate cryptocurrency that will benefit them in the long run.

If this happens,  cryptocurrency will loss more investors. Many investors who invested in this digital currency are into it because of the features of no or less identity leakage. Many people respect and love their privacy,  which is the reason why most aren't interested in credit cards or trading cryptocurrency with exchanges because of KYC. If identify verification is mandated in every time one wants to spend his/her coin, then many people will abandon cryptocurrency.

Wow the rules really strict, and we all need to submit documents to be able to used crypto, in the end crypto will be like fiat, nothing special anymore, this could drive away the investors, buy this is a logical decision, and the government is going to used money laundering reason to force the regulation, after the documents submission the next things will be taxing crypto users

Assuming these regulations would be implemented, how would they "manage our money"?

I actually find really hard to even pass these regulations due to the nature of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. It's almost impossible to track our every move while at the same time there are several ways to store your funds offline, supposing the governments could actually track online storage/wallets. I don't doubt that something won't happen towards the regulation of crypto, buy I do doubt its effectivity.

Not that hard at all. Regulator just has to make sure that no money flows into or out of cryptocurrencies without the transparency of transactions.

They don't need to track your movements directly. If there is, however, no way to take money out of cryptocurrency without transparency, such transparency will be enforced indirectly.

Assume you are a business. You only sell against bitcoin, but the bills (eg electricity, web hosting, wages, taxes etc) are in USD, so you will need to exchange the btc income for usd and move that usd to your bank account to pay the bills. The regulator can force banks  not to accept any usd tranfers from any cryptoexchange without proof of providence.

Not surprising that they are trying to do this, legislations on exchange regulation is already pretty draconian, and they are just trying to do the same on wallets.

Bitcoin itself is completely transparent, much more transparent than the fiat banking system. But obviously, people on the bitcoin network cannot be identified by anything other than an address, which can be created infinitely.

Services such as exchanges and hosted wallets can definitely track their customers. However, it's impossible for them to conduct any sort of KYC/AML on you if you hold your private keys and you sign your own transactions, since the bitcoin network itself does not require KYC. All in all, avoid hosted wallets and exchanges as much as possible for storing funds.

I see this problem in two different directions.
First, if there are legal regulations on cryptocurrency, this market will be secured and investors will be more secure when entering the market, which will make the market grow stronger.
Second, if managed, the cryptocurrency and confidentiality will no longer exist because the government will control the transaction, which will upset the unwilling investors.

This is certainly going to happen, and there is a lot of terrorism in Europe, and they are likely to be able to move money through digital encryption.

The European Union wants to monitor digital encryption to prevent criminal activity.

Is there a way they could implement kyc on wallets? If the wallets are not based on EU then they will not comply with that regulation.

KYC on exchanges should be because there are lots of movements of money in there. But KYC on wallets os an overkill.

This is a very correct government action! I believe that transparency should be, but within the reasonable, that is not everyone needs to know about my income.

I have listened to this news and I think this is a good step for the county as they are making bitcoin legal and asking people to provide more information to them about their bitcoin and all I think it’s a good step to avoid money laundering.

I get your point, if you actually withdraw money from the exchange into your bank account, you are bound to be caught and taxed one day. However, there are other ways to exchange Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, via face-to-face deals, this is the minority though to be honest but my point is that it can still be bypassed. If these regulations do pass, then they will probably start catching up most of the transactions/money laundering coming through banks.

Yeah EU, no every fucking country wants to do that.
And what makes you think that exchanges are beyond their jurisdiction? If there are any serious issues, the EU can subpoena the scammer or anyone who did some shady shit in EU related to cryptocurrencies.
Do you even know what kyc is? It is supposed to be used for good things but you can always stay anonymous, though you would have to be smart for it.

These could have an impact to the market. We don't know yet if these regulations would take away anonymity out of the equation. If it will, certainly many will have problems using it. Many will fear getting taxed or be made known to the public with their money.

Its really bad how they push it on our own wallet. I think its hard to happen because as we know that bitcoin is open source and its decentralized. If that regulation on exchanges its still ok but if that happen on our own wallet, i am believe that because of banks lobby

i believe this is will happen cause goverment somehow wanted to control economic aspect and they wanted to do AML. Regulation is inevitable and its good for development of cryptocurrency.

Along with bitcoin continues to grow, speculation also continue to be created. Their drive to create laws is something that deserves for appreciation, they say in order to prevent the financing of terrorism.

This is a good thing, but it takes a lot of research to know that.

The new laws will make first will be directed toward terrorism and might be directed toward a wider range especially tax.

If the government can regulate the currency, I think it will attract more investors.

But this is not acceptable for any authentication of any cryptocurrency. Many people respect and love their privacy.

You are right that it can be bypassed, but not in a scalable, maintainable way. Let's be honest, if we only talk about the occasional transaction, then there is no problem with regulation, but the cryptos will remain an unimportant toy. As soon as you want to run a serious business, or as soon as you want the majority of your income come from cryptos, these alternative channels will quickly become inoperable.

Also, even if you are able to accumulate wealth outside of a regulated system, it would be immensely difficult to use that wealth. The reintegration of the usd you managed to pull out of crypto will be made difficult, as at some point questions about the source of the money would arise inevitably.

Thus, I just don't see a way around it.

I argue that it may instead actually make Monero more valuable. It goes to show that Monero lives up to the original ideals and goals behind cryptocurrencies. Many people will buy and continue to use it because of the privacy it affords. Privacy has value, otherwise how different is crypto from banks.

To that in bold I say a big Yes! That is the excess for which most exchanges and ICOs now require a compulsory KYC, either during registration or during withdrawals. I know this may defile the secrecy bitcoin and cryptocurrency stand for but doing that  will expectedly be for the overall interest of the crypto industry.

If these issues bothering on terrorism and money laundering are what make some countries kick against the cryptocurrency, then these countries should open up and regulate the industry in their respective homes, rather than clamp down on this emerging technology.

It is not a big surprise going forward and every governments around the world want a transparent market and they wanted to collect information about every user and they will monitor everyone who has a huge amount of money and that is how things are going to go in the future, since this is a global market i hope they wont restrict the trade geographically .

I think that regulating crypto currencies is almost impossible for governments around the world. They can only "adapt" to all the mechanisms of the crypto. Where we are now ......... it is impossible to go back or cancel ...... only adaptation

crypto is it best because   if its decentralized system if they   make it more often even the government will penetrate and put it a big tax and decentralisation  will vanish and the control will put on the higher personnel

This is what many governments do not really understand they think that they will be able to regulate cryptocurrencies in the same way they regulate everything but it is not going to happen that way, people will begin to develop new solutions and one of the solutions for centralized exchanges are decentralized exchanges that will allow to us to exchange our coins without the need of going through know your customer policies.

I'm not killed. In fact, everything is going right, and the guys from the ES are working in the right direction. In large amounts, I think it should be transparent.

This is always the case of calling a dog a bad name in other to hang it.That is how some government treat bitcoin.Saying it is a tool used by terrorist and all the bullshit.Bitcoin in my opinion is not meant to be centralized or controlled the way some persons are proposing.We dont want some more anarchy from the powers that be.Bitcoin is for the people and is the peoples currency.

This is a nice thought regarding preventing money laundering and thefts happening due to crypto currencies. But the main question is how will they tackle this problem, its not the system which is corrupted its regarding the people who use in the negative way. EU might impose proper verification on local exchanges but it is nearly impossible to track global market transaction, despite have an open ledge we cannot link any wallet to any individual without proper investigation.

They need to figure out alternative methods to fight crime in the first place. Maybe drugs should be legal and taxed? Maybe we shouldn't tax peoples income and we wont have to deal with tax evasion? The government needs to adapt.

That could happen if government and regulator push it on regulation but as we know, bitcoin or other cryptocurrency are decentralized and if we opening bitcoin wallet should providing our identity, the name change to not crypto anymore

In my opinion they can easily achieve it because there is a blockchain explorer that they can use in order to see the things that they wanted to see. Most of the cryptocurrencies are already transparent so what kind of transparency is they want. The government can tell people to have an annual report of their cryptocurrency activities so they can get more transparency.

Now the government wants transparency about cryptocurrency and i think the main purpose for that is that they some piece of it. Cryptocurrency is now in the mainsteam and it is a hot item and it is the new money making machines. The central authority wants to look after where your money goes and then collect taxes. For what Satoshi envision bitcoin for anonymity and decentraized was only just a dream today as long as the authority blend in, Satoshi's dream can't be achieve in the future.

They want transparency means that they want to make centralized currency so what's the different between ordinary fiat
As I know, people love bitcoin because of it's decentralized so it's become bitcoin nature and should not be disturb in order to maintain their popularity.
Everybody want to find the win win solution for cryptocurrency !

EU's economy is so bad in recent years that they are hoping to find an opportunity to make their weak economy new, and perhaps they are now taking advantage of the opportunity to use digital money.

I am not suprised :(

Hmm, pretty interesting post.... , I Taw a post like Tat  ;D ;D


The European Economy is growing continuously and has done so for years with the exception of Greece none has experienced a GDP decline in the last 3 years.
That combined with the fact that in in 2013 the only ones posting a decline were Cyprus and Finland.

If the whole 14 trillion annual economy of the EU would be sinking cryptos would not save it.
Actually I think that the effect would pretty much be the opposite as the citizens in the EU are one of the biggest investors in crypto, if not the biggest.

BITCOIN and different cryptocurrencies, such as Ethereum could be directed intently by the European Association with an end goal to give financial specialists less obscurity. Bitcoin cost has kept on diving following feelings of dread from financial specialists of an exchanging clampdown by organizations internationally.

Cryptocurrency is enemy banks or central banks. I am believe they will do anything to stop or slowing down crypto growing because cryptocurrency can disrupting banks bussiness. Imagine if we make transaction with others peoples in other country via internet, and we paying with crypto like bitcoin, we dont need intermediaries like banks and bitcoin offering fast and instand transfer.
I am believe and hope not happen, tha what happen Euro will not happen in others country

EU is an hypocrite organization. They want to regulate cryoto currency because it can be used for terrorism and money laundering ? why. ? Does they're fiat currency does not do the same ? in fact their currency is most widely use in such illegal activity.
This is only an excuse to regulate and control crypto users.

Although I am happy that we at least have some freedom with all the control from the government, I agree to them on some points regarding the protection against terrorism and money laundering. Illegal transactions like this are favorable with cryptocurrencies due to anonymity but then I believe there are more people who are using it in legal way rather than the opposite and the perception against cryptocurrencies being only used in illegal means are dwindling down. If we have this regulation then it is a protection for us against those who abuse such freedom but we are losing our own freedom as well and the government may come up with plan again to take total control on us by being transparent about it.

Well i think all governments are using terrorism and money laundering as an excuse. They all want to tax crypto. They all want to control crypto because they know many people are into it and they'll probably get more money in taxing crypto than taxing small business. Thats why there are many regulations coming out from different countries.

agree, most governments are eyeing on bitcoin as milking cow, and not just to get rid of illegal activities that uses bitcoin transaction, they tend to regulate it by tracing the user's wallet, though they cannot trace them in blockchains, so they are now focusing on exchange wallets, which is more less anonymous. just imagine how much tax revenues they can milk to millions of users worldwide.

I can't really see how they can make this happen. Crypto doesn't belong to any country/jurisdiction, so they just can't oblige developers to implement it. And with growth of DEX's it will eventually be the same picture.

this demand is not fits with nature of cryptocurriencies. everybody forget why bitcoin and blockchain idea had discovered.

Yes, of course I am also very worried about my friends, where there will be regulations that are not beneficial to us but it will be a little disadvantage that will be a lot of very annoying regulations, especially on big enough taxes and many related affairs in the input into the affairs political. or the interests of the government, I think it will make all the chaos and people will leave crypto because the disgust does not meet the expected society.

Lol. Hypocrisy indeed. We’re against terrorism, but we’re not against American bombing. We’re humanitarian advocates, but we don’t accept refugees. We love children, but most child abuses are from Europeans.

It is more of political thing what I’m talking about, but I’m just stating that anonymity is not even the cause of all this money laundering and funding of terrorism. Ask Soros he knows how to do it without hiding.

This is insanely against the standard of freedom, it’s prone to corruption by which our identity can be used for reason like kidnap for ransom, I know you have billions of bitcoin EU parliamentary leak/exposed it.

Decentralization will null if the government will maneuver the cryptocurrency. At some point, they are correct because anti-money laundering and tax evasion can track by the government and terrorism may prevent specially, now that crypto is used in criminalities. But I think the new regulation of the government is not newly in our eyes, KYC and tax. The old times that we are happy in cryptocurrency will change by our disappointment due to the care of central authority.

There have been many terrorist activities in Europe in recent years.

The anonymous trading of digital cryptographic currencies could facilitate terrorists.

The ban on anonymous transactions has helped to combat crime and terrorism.

You really believe on that? Look at the war zone, power house countries are financing rebels or government to kill each other. In legal ways with millions of dollars, ask Uncle Sam about that. This manipulation from mainstream media is making me nuts, lies are just norms at this days as we ourselves being blinded by it.

ISIS or other terrorist groups have been bombing around the world for decades, even when bitcoin and cryptocurrency is not in existence. The government and business tycoons is funding them legally by means of donations, so don’t be just a slave of their narrative.

The wallet they must be talking about here is the centralized wallet since that is the only category of wallet that they can issue their regulation on and this at the end of the day with exchanges being the main target. So, whoever may be planning to buy bitcoin via exchanges with fiat must have to go through KYC process as with this, anyone that is bringing in unaccounted funds would have to explain where that came from. It is not something we can hide away from, as it is expected that somehow this would end up happening anyway.

Well, there is no problem if EU wants transparency on cryptocurrencies unless they are the one who initiate or conduct and investigation together with there own tools to catch criminals if they think cryptocurrency are being used by funding criminals.

I'm fine with it. This will lower down crime rate and make sure that no money laundering and terrorism will be supported. As long as everything will be the same as what Bitcoin started, all is fine with me with that change.

The article is very interesting and I think EU is really taking a good necessary step because everyone wants to be on the safer side of the terrorism and other money laundering activities. I think by collecting the data from the traders they just want to be on the safer side and they really want to maintain the stats and database regarding the wallets and the user's necessary KYC etc. Hoping for the best and expecting some more good moves taken by the EU and other countries regarding the fight against the money laundering and Terrorism Financing. In our country, India we are soon going to see strict rules against the cryptocurrency trading as the government is planning to regulate the coins.

They can look at the blockchain and see every transaction that has ever been made in bitcoin or in almost every other cryptocurrency, that is not what they want what they want is to link those transactions with real names so they can tax them and obtain money from them that is what they want, but it's going to be really difficult for them to obtain that.

Transparency is needed so that bitcoin and cryptocurrency can survive and thrive in the financial markets of the world. Adoption by most EU countries is a very big recognition for bitcoin and crypto, which shows the bright future of this market.

Honestly I don't see this happening unless the EU really pushesh some really hard regulations on exchanges and etc. They cannot force wallet devs to get info from us but they can stip their business in the EU.

This is a very positive news that the government of most of the countries are taking this concept of crypto currency very much seriously and that all of them are trying and looking for the best possible thing to do which can then help them in getting their economy more stronger and that there are likely chances that soon, most of the countries declare these crypto currencies as legal currencies.

Hypocrisy from EU? No, it's just you spreading lies.
https://www.humanium.org/en/rcri-world-ranking-by-countries/

And even those statics are lenient towards 3rd world countries because almost nobody is reporting the cases there as they know nobody will take actions.
In the EU if your child cries at night you might end up with the police at your door, in Africa they will act only if they find his dead body.

Humanitarian ad?
The EU has contributed to the UN with more than $91.784 billion, that's 180$ per capita, we have accepted more than 4 million refugees while our countries are still recovering.

What about the hypocrisy of the refugees that come to our countries and start raping stealing and killing the ones that welcomed them.

Funny how you're criticizing the EU now when just two weeks ago you were saying this:


Probably they are choosing Europe over your beloved Venezuela because of our hypocrisy....

We needed them to regulate cryptocurrency not make it as something equivalent to a local currency. If they are talking  more about identity verification in exchange for traders, then, it's not a new thing cause we already have it. But for identity verification for every bitcoin or any cryptocurrency spent, then it's unacceptable.

Yes this might happen if the government pressurise the wallet providers,then they would have no other option than asking KYC details from the customers and this would bring an end to anonymity completely.

and now they are targeting wallets directly,this would be a big problem because were here in crypto to find freedom on our funds,and now EU wanted to interfere our privacy what would be the next?we need to send our details in order to make transaction?this is other government way of taking privacy from people

More transparency is maybe the key for a massive adoption. Moreover, EU has to find a solution to take advantage of the crypocurrentcy, otherwise, it will be soon outperformed by other countries or regions, on a  economically plan;

I don't believe this is possible. Many purses are outside the EU zone. These rules cannot be applied to them and will not be supported. Maybe some of the funds users will show to the government but the main savings will remain in the shadows and governments will never force them to show.

if only the btcs be supported as well as blockchain ran partially by govt. then it could happen.

I think that this will be another way for the government to place taxes on cryptocurrency investors so i do not think that this will be a great idea, they can catch people who are having illegal activities but they should not get our own informations because it can be used to threaten people who are holding a huge amount.

Actually in my opinion government in my particular country just wants to fave profit and taxes from those, who are not paying them yet from crypto.

Which other way can we guard against the evil uses of cryptocurrencies such as drug trafficking and the likes? They're obviously not trying to fight against cryptocurrencies, they're trying to see how users could be more transparent as many could hide under its anonymity to perpetrate evil. If you know a better way to go about it, suggest it here.

This will surely happen and they have all rights to ask for more information if the exchanged amount exceeds 10,000€. This is anyway common standart for banks and as long as they do not prohibit crypto currencies, you can not really complain about it.

I see it possitive and this should motivate the crypto currencies users to use the banking and fiat money system less.

I certainly agree with you, if Bitcoin was regulated it is very unlawful to this nature , people will soon change the entire existence of this currency which we should not let happened cause this forum had done very well this passed few years because people also maintain the nature that it keep to its system and putting some regulation to this might not be a great idea for me since thats what we take care of, personal information whether you are a scammer or not

It can be possible because the people involved in transaction just are connected by their respected id. now we can see them in data mining

I would not say Monero cannot be listed. The way some of these exchanges that are fiat based works is not just basically to monitor the transactions from wallet to wallet, but the transaction within the exchange. That is where the whole money laundering thing comes in anyway, except for those who may want to go the dark way and preferably not go through exchanges to invest. With that, as long as you are registered on the exchange and you are making fiat-cryptocurrency transactions, all that will end up being monitored.

The nain reason of the bitcoins for not being transparent is that, it a set of mere codes, that cant be kept track of

They should better have erradicted the possibility if blockchain expansion rather than demanding for an impossible policy

This is true. Considering you could also potentially keep your bitcoin on a piece of paper. There's no way they could effectively implement this. I still think the best way to do it is through exchanges. Besides it's not btc is as liquid as fiat. Or at least at its current state, regulation on exchanges could still work.

I can hardly say anything about it as I am totally new to this system

The thing especially with using an exchange to do transaction is that your name and details are already attached to your accounts and all the wallets you generate are as well. It is not a stage we are not prepared for anyway, as we cannot expect the government to keep quiet on the idea of laundering.

If you start doing something fishy within the exchange, what they are looking for is to be able to tag those activities and question it, which is where the whole idea of regulation kicks in. But multi accounts and few kind of malfunctionings are not new just due to cryptocurrencies. But, government may understand this not in near future unfortunately.

Semilar to KYC,they want every individuals in their region that transacting here in crypto will be have transfarency things that good for me,the only problem is,if the government takes advantage to the members,since they have the profile of the users,i guess this must have a full security and safeties for all of us

even though it happens I guess that new solutions towards those regulations will be found and created in blockchain so it would not affect the privacy too much if anyone wants to keep it private.

Whom among us here don't want a transparent transaction? I know that all of us are here because we saw the transparency in cryptocurrency. EU wants to have a fair system in cryptocurrency because right now, people are using it in illegal activities. I guess it is good if all countries will regulate cryptocurrency instead of banning in order for the scammers to prevent the scamming the people.

cryptocurrencies are as transparent as their "licensed" and "burocratic" and "legal" bankster cartells.

If thats concretly is the case then people will begin to avoid hardware wallets, when it's obvious that regulation is coming it seems that governments aren't realizing how difficult it will be to go against bitcoin

Does that mean that they want even desktop wallets to require you to identify youself before you're allowed to download the software?

I read the forecast of one of the analysts and he said that due to the introduction of the need to verify the account and confirm their identity to all the owners of purses, such coins as Monero will become popular and this will increase its price. Perhaps he is right, but governments will not stop and will continue to follow the anonymity by introducing new rules, thereby dumping prices for them.

Of course, everything goes to personalizing all purse owners and keeping track of all transactions on the network in order to have full control over all users. And this will make it much easier than before, because all transactions and amounts are written to blockchain. Perhaps anonymous cryptocurrencies will become more popular among those who want to remain anonymous as before, but there is a possibility that exchanges will begin to delete them and stop trading them, because there is no way to monitor transactions on the network, and therefore to determine from whom and to whom the coins were sent there is no possibility. This is unlikely to please governments and they will also introduce bans on anonymous cryptocurrency.

This is actually a thing now, the image provided shows you that this certain Coinbase Wallet account has a cash limit of both deposit and withdrawals as this account hasn't been verified yet, and the only way of increasing their weekly limit is by verifying your identity to the wallet provider. As far as I know the cash limits was set by Coinbase as per following the guidelines of the central bank, these cash limits are at its maximum where you don't need any identification. And in order to go beyond the limit you will need to verify your account to Coinbase.

As per reading the article, the European Union I think wants to require wallet providers verification of their users' identity to all its users even those who are transacting at low volumes. And I think this is a good solution in fighting criminal activities since smart criminals can send or receive BTC or other cryptocurrencies in tranches in order to avoid detection from the authorities, requiring identification to wallet providers will certainly avoid money laundering and somehow will make terrorist financing hard as suspected members can be monitored. Obviously they will need to control on what wallet providers can be accessible to Europe in order to make this work properly, as none of this matter if different kinds wallets for the same cryptocurrency can be accessible inside Europe.

We know that in the last year, EU has released its attitude towards the opening of bitcoin, which is very much related to EU's economy. In the last ten years, EU's economy is rather difficult. They are eager to find an opportunity to drive the economy. Maybe encryption is a good opportunity for EU.

The centralization of decentralized. The nature that blockchain and cryptocurrencies bring which is anonymity and privacy want to take away from us by governments, they want authority as most as they do to banks. I believe in case it is applied, the decentralized exchanges are the only solutions to protect our privacy and anonymity.

There are so many countries who are taking this concept of the crypto currencies very much seriously and that the government is willing to take some constructive steps to make these crypto coins work for them. All they need is that they are waiting for some time to see the way things work so that they may then have a better idea of the market and that they can manage to make better decision.

There are many continents that Bitcoin has expanded to, but in other developed countries, there are other currencies that consider Bitcoin as a grip because the currency is risky. Many believe that Bitcoin will be detrimental to the market economy as well as the money of investors.

I think there is nothing wrong with implementing this. Because we are sure that our money came from a clean business. I don't know how technically they'll execute this but surely this will help the security of a country.

Well, that  is something we are already seeing being implemented anyway as most exchanges now are already beginning to by all means ensure the need to do KYC. Not just EU, almost all the countries want to monitor or take control of cryptocurrencies so that they can have it as per their preferences to make sure binding cryptocurrencies within their law.

However, I do not know if this is going to be running on all platforms yet since all platforms are going to be subjected to the country of legislation in which they are operating, but I believe this would be a step ahead to having some peace in this region and to really curb the idea of money laundering.

KYC is already common in cryptoworld right now but KYC applied on our wallet i think its will become not crypto again. Government want to know our assets and I think the most important thing about anonymity is because cryptocurrency is beyond regulation

I think they were commenting a tighter rules from months.. This will only lead to more and better decentralized exchanges, in my opinion

I think it's quite a reasonable measures in order to prevent terrorism! Maybe they will not prevent terrorism at all, but will be able to reduce its amount.

I'm sure they'll never emphasize that remiitance world companies like WesternUnion and other banks like HSBC has admitted to laundering money to who knows where and only got off with fines

From what thI European Union is proposing, we are going to trade the anonymity of bitcoin users so that they don’t completely ban th crypto currency so that they could combat money laundering and terrorism financing , I believe it’s a completely rational thing since it helps fight against crime.

Maybe in the future, wallets will be more secured in terms of transactions, there are a lot of people today who are earning a huge amount of profit and not getting problems without further informations about the wallet holder.

Transparency in the cryptocurrency market is very difficult, but when governments want to manage crypto, it is inevitable. In order for the crypto market to become transparent and gain the support of everyone, I am confident that countries will have a cryptocurrency management policy that will allow them to grow stronger and stronger.

this could have both positive and negative effects because so many people do not invest in cryptocurrency because they are afraid of lack of transparency.If cryptocurrency can be made transparent in any way then it will help to expand the market.It could also affect the market too with government bureaucracy things can be retarded.

The Cryptocurrency market and Bitcoin users still hope that. But the problem is what the EU will do to be able to manage and make Bitcoin transparent. Actually this is very difficult, because the creation of the Blockchain platform made Bitcoin invulnerable. With security and systems like Bitcoin, it is difficult to partner with the EU to make Bitcoin transparent, even though Bitcoin was created for the sake of good.

I think this is hard. By being anonymous in Bitcoin trading, how can the government confirm that the transaction is legitimate, not money laundering or terrorist financing? The government will not be able to manage this problem. Monitoring and management of Bitcoin is a daunting task, because it is the nature of Bitcoin: anonymity and security.