EU wants to ban crypto anonymous transactions and wallets

[ChiBitCTy]

This is something that I certainly have very much feared, as a huge Monero supporter especially.  This is really why I have stressed over and over again that bitcoin should never become fully anonymous.  Would I love for bitcoin to be fully anonymous? Of course! However if you think about it, many countries don't allow freedom of religion, or freedom of sexual preference, disallowing women to vote or drive.. if these type of restriction are in place, then how on earth are they going to allow exchanges to operate allowing an on and off ramp for a currency they can't control..could get messy.

[el kaka22]

I am not shocked that a power that controls everyone's movement would want to ban something that gives people to move money around. They will always hide behind "money laundering" but their banks literally launder money from the cartel, look at Deutsche Bank, they are known to launder money from the mafia and Russian oligarchs, how did all those bad people in the world laundered money when there were no crypto? Did we have zero money laundering before 2008? Of course we had it, and it was done via fiat as well, now they are saying bitcoin needs to be banned in certain ways so that they could ban money laundering which is not even 1% of what crypto is used for.

This is simply a tactic to make sure they have huge control over bitcoin and that's it, we are not talking about something that is actually risky for the world, the worst we could do with it is avoid taxes and that is really not that hard in fiat neither.

[LoyceV]

I am not shocked that a power that controls everyone's movement would want to ban something

On the upside: if governments want to ban or control something, that can only mean they expect it to become really big

[lovesmayfamilis]

If the government fails to find out the holders and the number of bitcoins in their wallets, they reinvent the other side. "You can keep your cryptocurrencies for a very long time while remaining anonymous, but someday you will tell us about yourself anyway, since there will be a reason for the movement of these cryptocurrencies" Regulators will come up with more and more ways to control cryptocurrencies.
In Russia, it is also proposed not only to recognize the owners of the transactions but also to confiscate the cryptocurrency, "which has become a source of income from crimes."
And of course, all governments create laws only for the benefit and protection of the population. 

[jaysabi]

Same old, same old. "Money laundering and terrorism" is always used as an excuse to gain more control over the people.

But those two are a serious problem though, I mean I would gladly give away the privilege of pseudonymity if it can prevent terrorist funding and money laundering from using crypto, I think that the market would benefit more if we crypto isn't rife of these malicious or even evil activities.

Fiat is a serious problem, then, because most money laundering is carried out using cash. And don't think that abolishing cash would help either. Large amounts of electronic money are laundered via corporate networks and international transfers through tax havens.

That's why there's KYC for banks.  Transacting in large amounts of cash is an obvious sign of money laundering, and at least in the US, banks have to verify identities and also report large cash transactions to the government specifically to combat money laundering.  There are two ways this is done, through Currency Transaction Reports and Suspicious Activity Reports.  Fiat actually has a lot of regulations surrounding its use, so in analogizing crypto to fiat, you're implicitly agreeing that the same KYC efforts undertaken with cash should also apply to crypto.

[dothebeats]

Different approaches, same reasoning. Central governing bodies cannot seem to grasp the idea behind decentralization and anonymity, and are constantly prying things open for their own sake and not for the citizens'. Sure, money laundering and fraud is a serious problem, though it does not exclusively happen in cryptocurrencies which they are focusing highly on. Heck, even in banks wherein security checks and systems are high, these illicit activities are still widespread, and are not really going to disappear any time soon.

[electronicash]

how are they going to prevent a wallet from sending to another wallet?  if they mean miners won't be able to verify their tx then this is getting very centralized.

there is nothing yet in the article so we'd have to wait for an update of this fud. but it is probably just within their LN channel, outside it, you still can do send how much you want. the proposal seems worse than the communist party.

[FloridaKid]

Let them try, as far as you got your private keys and recovery seeds no one can stop you, this action can only affect centralised wallets like coinbase and others not trust wallet and coinomi wallet likes

[Argoo]

They can not do it when terrorists are buying AK47 using cash but now they are going to because blockchain is traceable, but the kind of authority they will acquire is something we can't trust.  But they will try, it's interesting to see how they will do this.  Limiting transactions below 10,000 euros ($11,800) i guess are not required.

Do they mean that wallets like Bitcoin Core or Electrum?

Terrorists, if they want to buy weapons from someone using cryptocurrency, will do so without hindrance, since the transfer of funds between two cryptocurrency wallets cannot be controlled. In the banking system, to control banks, there are cash and settlement centers. That is, if a transaction is made between two banks, the payment all the same first goes to the cash settlement center, is fixed there, and then after a short time goes further to the bank of the payment destination. Will states be able to change the blockchain enough to make such control? If so, then cryptocurrency will not differ much from regular fiat money.
In addition, according to the FATF decision of June 21, 2019, transactions in the amount of less than 1,000 euros, and not 10,000 euros, are not subject to identification.

[dkbit98]

This was announced even earlier so I am not surprised but people should understand that we have the power and not regulators.
EU, all other governments and big tech are trying hard to centralize everything and make some weird fourth reich totalitarian control of everything we do and think both online and offline.
Just imagine if nobody would follow their stupid rules, I knows it's hard but just try it, they could not enforce anything on us, and we don't even need majority of people.
I think it's time for our own people's reset of bureaucracy and crooked political system, or we may wake up in great digital gulag soon.

[Bravehash]

They can not do it when terrorists are buying AK47 using cash but now they are going to because blockchain is traceable, but the kind of authority they will acquire is something we can't trust.  But they will try, it's interesting to see how they will do this.  Limiting transactions below 10,000 euros ($11,800) i guess are not required.

Do they mean that wallets like Bitcoin Core or Electrum?

Terrorists, if they want to buy weapons from someone using cryptocurrency, will do so without hindrance, since the transfer of funds between two cryptocurrency wallets cannot be controlled. In the banking system, to control banks, there are cash and settlement centers. That is, if a transaction is made between two banks, the payment all the same first goes to the cash settlement center, is fixed there, and then after a short time goes further to the bank of the payment destination. Will states be able to change the blockchain enough to make such control? If so, then cryptocurrency will not differ much from regular fiat money.
In addition, according to the FATF decision of June 21, 2019, transactions in the amount of less than 1,000 euros, and not 10,000 euros, are not subject to identification.

Criminals can fund terrorists account using dark web I heard and that's even before crypto became a thing, if this is the problem there shouldn't have been past terrorists funding through out the world, this is a lame excuse honestly

[mindrust]

I might affect bitcoin if you decide to use your coins anonymously but it will definitely affect monero/grin and the other privacy coins.

Soon you'll have to report how much crypto you got and in which wallets.  If you don't report your coins, they'll assume you don't have any and if you were found to be have some, that will cause problems.

[Dragonfund]

I think this has to do with platforms who deals directly with verified users and they want to know their every move.
I like my country here where the financial institutions are forbidden to run Cryptocurrency payments and transfer between clients through banks. They have close down deposits and withdrawals through many exchanges we have been using as means of making swift deposit and withdrawal.
The only option we have been given is p2p, where even the banks wouldn't know the particular transactions are for crypto settlement.
I think EU citizens should go fully on p2p and shun the silly Government.

[South Park]

This I believe may affect Bitcoin, at least as we know it so far:

"In particular, the EU would ban anonymous crypto asset wallets, according to an EU fact sheet, with the European Commission saying that systems like Bitcoin should be governed by the same rules as regular bank wire transfers."

In other words, for each transaction they want to identify the user who sends and the user who receives the transaction, which is easy if one of the parties is a registered exchange user. If the other party is not identified, the transaction is blocked.

I don't know how those who have their funds in hardware wallets and don't want to identify themselves would be. I suppose that at least they would be very limited in their ability to send funds. And then banning anonymous wallets is another blow to privacy.

I don't know what you think about how this could end up.

Good luck trying to actually implement that, it is obvious they want this market to bend to their will, this is nothing new, can they do it? And the answer is no, people that have their coins in exchanges will just sen their coins to an address they control and notify the exchange and then do whatever they want with their coins, let them think they can do it, this in fact plays on our favor as this is better than an outright ban and once they realize this is never going to work a few years would have passed already and we will have even more users on the network.

[semobo]

This I believe may affect Bitcoin, at least as we know it so far:

"In particular, the EU would ban anonymous crypto asset wallets, according to an EU fact sheet, with the European Commission saying that systems like Bitcoin should be governed by the same rules as regular bank wire transfers."

In other words, for each transaction they want to identify the user who sends and the user who receives the transaction, which is easy if one of the parties is a registered exchange user. If the other party is not identified, the transaction is blocked.

I don't know how those who have their funds in hardware wallets and don't want to identify themselves would be. I suppose that at least they would be very limited in their ability to send funds. And then banning anonymous wallets is another blow to privacy.

I don't know what you think about how this could end up.

But bitcoin is not governed by anyone so there is no central authority or controlling agent which means the EU also don't have any control over the transactions so they can't block the actual transaction no matter what.

Blockchain technology gives an upper hand to the users and the people who are ruling can only manipulate but can't order!

[just_Alice]

That’s a little disappointing, what happened to the whole alleged value of freedom by the EU?

But I don’t see that becoming a big problem, how can they possibly influence the transactions that are done off the exchange? People with hardware should be fine, the only problem will be withdrawal. But I guess those regulations will just lead to the emergence of unlicensed and underground exchanges.

[verita1]

It was to be expected that we get to this point with the forthcoming bitcoin regulations.
We cannot break the laws. It is obvious that privacy is at stake. But if we are not doing something wrong we must accept the regulations.

The main objective we want is to allow us to include bitcoin and crypto transactions without hindrance.
When incorporating bitcoin into banking of course we must go through the KYC and AML process.
We have won freedom now the governments should not prohibit it because they would be violating our rights.

[jaysabi]

That’s a little disappointing, what happened to the whole alleged value of freedom by the EU?

But I don’t see that becoming a big problem, how can they possibly influence the transactions that are done off the exchange? People with hardware should be fine, the only problem will be withdrawal. But I guess those regulations will just lead to the emergence of unlicensed and underground exchanges.

What makes you think that will happen?  Bitcoin was outlawed in China and did we see a bunch of underground exchanges open up, or did we see a mass exodus of bitcoin leaving China while people could still exchange it legally before the crackdown?  We saw the latter, so there's no reason to think that there's going to be a bunch of illegal exchanges popping up to try and get around the law when it becomes illegal to operate one.

[magneto]

Therein lies the beauty of bitcoin - you simply cannot do that.

There is no centralised point of failure as there is for traditional wire transfers, which is what makes BTC so unique and useful in the first place. No central entity can control transaction validation, money supply, or even censor transactions. It's simply not possible unless they somehow shut down all of the nodes worldwide.

They could always formulate regulation, but whether or not they'll be able to enforce it is another issue altogether.

[Vishnu.Reang]

What makes you think that will happen?  Bitcoin was outlawed in China and did we see a bunch of underground exchanges open up, or did we see a mass exodus of bitcoin leaving China while people could still exchange it legally before the crackdown?  We saw the latter, so there's no reason to think that there's going to be a bunch of illegal exchanges popping up to try and get around the law when it becomes illegal to operate one.

There is no need for any new "illegal" exchange. Here in India, less than half of the trading volume is nowadays done through the mainstream exchanges. Hostile government actions since 2018 has made many of the users move to P2P platforms and DEX exchanges. I guess this is the case with China as well. When the legal exchanges closed down, many of the users might have moved to P2P platforms (although doing this in a dictatorship like China is much more than doing the same in India).