EU wants to ban crypto anonymous transactions and wallets

[Vishnu.Reang]

LOL.. look at the person who made the statement. Mairead McGuinness (European Union financial srevices commissioner), who is originally from Ireland. She comes from a country that is regarded as a safe haven for financial criminals and used as a base by corporate firms such as Amazon and Microsoft to evade EU taxes (Ireland is one of the 9 countries, that have refused to sign the OECD proposal for minimum corporate tax). I guess Ms. McGuinness is concerned that Ireland will lose its inflow of shady funds, if Bitcoin becomes more popular. I hope McGuinness will soon be kicked out of office and replaced by someone who is mentally stable.

[countryfree]

I wonder if the person who launched that project had any experience with BTC, because I really can't see how they could ban "anonymous crypto asset wallets"... Anyway, if this goes through, and that's a big if, it's a fantastic opportunity for Switzerland and some other neighboring countries.

[Sithara007]

I wonder if the person who launched that project had any experience with BTC, because I really can't see how they could ban "anonymous crypto asset wallets"... Anyway, if this goes through, and that's a big if, it's a fantastic opportunity for Switzerland and some other neighboring countries.

Mairead McGuinness (European Commissioner for Financial Stability, Financial Services and the Capital Markets Union) is behind the proposal, and she is known to be a very controversial politician. And just because she has proposed something, there is no guarantee that the EU will implement it. There are saner members in EU and they will understand that such stupid proposals are impossible to implement. Hopefully next time, they will select someone who is more competent in important posts such as this one. 

[cheezcarls]

This is freaking ridiculous! Why would they ban something that cannot be prevented or controlled? Anonymous crypto transactions doesn’t have any third party control or whatsoever because it’s completely decentralized. Do they honestly believe that Bitcoin has a “central core” that would make them fully control everything? Absolutely not.

Although they are stopping financial institutions or banks from engaging into crypto (especially the Binance drama), but they can’t prevent P2Ps while we are using non-custodial wallets

They simply wanted to be left behind in this phenomenon.

[Woodie]

What's the business with the government, the authorities and wanting to know what we are doing with our money?

The sooner they know that cryptocurrencies like bitcoin came about to avoid prying eyes of the government and restore full control of of our money in crypto.

Btw what the EU wants is as good as trying to ban the blockchain technology, this mission they are on is a failed one already,  someone advise them to deal with the effects of brexit and not crypto which they don't understand.

[shield132]

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

This! Btw would love to hear from them that the bitcoin that is used for "terrorism and laundering" is then converted into fiat and finally, this fiat is used for that purpose. Also, I am waiting for the moment when they'll ban the internet because this is the place where people receive money digitally, where people create black markets, where people fund terrorism and make some meetings / spread the word via the internet, etc.

All I can say is that this will turn against them, they'll stop the massive usage but there is nothing they can do against it. If something fails, a better solution is always built. This is a non-stop circle that no one can stop and hope they know that humans develop without limits.

[Kusman]

The action that EU wants to take is actually against Bitcoin's structure. The anonymity is one of the most important features that Bitcoin users have. But on the other hand, there will be many people who will continue to launder money very easily if the governments don't want people to indicate which wallet belongs to whom. There is a big dilemma here.

[bryant.coleman]

The action that EU wants to take is actually against Bitcoin's structure. The anonymity is one of the most important features that Bitcoin users have. But on the other hand, there will be many people who will continue to launder money very easily if the governments don't want people to indicate which wallet belongs to whom. There is a big dilemma here.

If they want to track money laundering, then they can add additional KYC filters for the exchanges where cryptocurrency is being converted to fiat currency. Instead of that, they want to flag all the cryptocurrency transactions as suspicious. First of all, they need to understand that it is impossible to find out whether a particular cryptocurrency transaction was done by someone residing in the EU, or outside the jurisdiction. These people are still unable to comprehend the basic technology behind cryptocurrency. They are just thinking that it is similar to fiat currency in all aspects.

[Haunebu]

This is just another pointless proposal submitted by a group of idiots who plan on trying to increase their power over the common citizens of the EU which will most likely not get approved in my opinion.

Some investors need to improve their brain-power and realise the fact that these proposals are usually submitted and rejected on a regular basis by governments around the world.

But on the other hand, there will be many people who will continue to launder money very easily if the governments don't want people to indicate which wallet belongs to whom. There is a big dilemma here.

Wrong. People will continue to launder money regardless of whether cryptocurrencies get banned or not.

[sapnu]

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.

Europe covers a lot of powerful countries that makes up huge impact towards crypto for the past years. If ever this is made possible and gets accepted as a law, it will make a significant change towards bitcoin's value which will more likely be detrimental. Though that's the case, there is no guarantee yet that it will be passed by the government but we should stay updated so that we may know what trend might occur as it takes place. Always make sure that you are well aware of the happenings with regards to crypto, it is a very important task of an investor specially when it is dealing with huge and rich countries.

[Vishnu.Reang]

Europe covers a lot of powerful countries that makes up huge impact towards crypto for the past years. If ever this is made possible and gets accepted as a law, it will make a significant change towards bitcoin's value which will more likely be detrimental. Though that's the case, there is no guarantee yet that it will be passed by the government but we should stay updated so that we may know what trend might occur as it takes place. Always make sure that you are well aware of the happenings with regards to crypto, it is a very important task of an investor specially when it is dealing with huge and rich countries.

It was just a proposal from one of the officials (Mairead McGuinness). There is no support for this move from anyone else. At this point, I am surprised that so many people took it seriously in the first place. And even if someone wants to convert this proposal in to a law, it is going to take many years of lobbying and consultations. For start, it needs to be approved by the European Council as well as the European Parliament. This step alone can take many years. And by that time, Bitcoin will be recognized as legal tender in multiple countries and no one will be stupid enough to support such regressive moves.

[Ucy]

I don't see anything wrong in using money/crypto without revealing your name. Part of the problem is that they made the word Anonymous look bad and foreign whereas humans have be transacting anonymously for thousands of years. It's actually going very risky to have people transact with their names on the internet.
I recommended the use of safe Anonymity instead ... with that, anyone can choose to reveal their name to who they find trustworthy.

[johnyj]

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.

Fundamentally, this is a critical question: Who should make laws and why should citizens trust them?

In fact, the people that make laws are no better than average Joe on street, and they just happened to sit in that position due to their ancestors or some other opportunities, which brought them power. And many of the laws are just a joke if you look at it at grand scale: US put a sanction on Iran for its international wire transfer. This is no difference than child fighting each other on the street, using different means. It is still very primitive and beast-like humanity

Crypto has given an answer to this problem and give back the control to each individual. However, it will be utilized by criminals and politicians as well, so some kind of regulation is needed, but we might not trust those primitive kids that make laws. We need better laws, maybe in forms of smart contract, that linked to oracle

For example, how do you know this specific transaction has nothing to do with money laundering or terrorist financing? We need a smart contract that gives the answer based on the data from oracle, without involvement of human regulators. This is a huge framework and once it is done, we no longer need human regulators any more

BTW, lots of economy activities are happening on blockchain and has no connection with current physical world, this is much more difficult to regulate since today's regulators definitely have no idea what is going on there

[Dread Pirate Roberts]

is not clear and seems to just make up for an uncertain story . anonymous transactions? So what ? As long as they don't use third parties and have nothing to do with the government, what's their business? it is very possible if there is an official bank that is legally running in their country using anonymous wallet and transaction this might be implemented.

[fulcare]

What I don't get is how would they even enforce their plans? Am I missing something? How would they ban Monero wallets from being downloaded and then block transactions? This is bogus, seriously. They can't do shit about it.

It will be the same as almost any other law: law abiding citizens will follow the law, while criminals don't care. It's the same as for instance gun laws: where I live normal people don't have them, but it doesn't stop criminals.

Maybe they hope for the countries or the EU to turn into an area where denunciation becomes a thing again. If I know somebody who owns Monero and I denigrate that somebody, I might even benefit from it in some way. Otherwise I don't get the point. The only way to catch every single thing that you as a state deem criminal is to give up freedom as a concept and turn your area into a full police state. Even then you will have criminals. The death penalty doesn't even keep freaks from raping and killing others.

[Assface16678]

I don't see anything wrong in using money/crypto without revealing your name. Part of the problem is that they made the word Anonymous look bad and foreign whereas humans have be transacting anonymously for thousands of years. It's actually going very risky to have people transact with their names on the internet.
I recommended the use of safe Anonymity instead ... with that, anyone can choose to reveal their name to who they find trustworthy.

Instead of that, what we need is that only the authorities can have access to our information online for crypto stuffs that we are dealing with. In a way we can be sure that it won't go down to the wrong hands because you're assured that your government is going to keep your information safe. Also, is there really any true anonymity anymore, pretty sure that's non-existent anymore.

[d5000]

I'm in no way supporting this draft, but most people here in the thread got the news wrong (so far, mainly mu_enrico got it right). Before the thread degenerates entirely:

The EU is not planning to ban anonymous "transactions", but anonymous "centralized wallet services"!

The planned legislation is based on the FATF travel rule. It is directed to companies who control cryptocurrency on behalf of their users, i.e. exchanges, web wallets, brokerage services and so on, and some other companies (e.g. in the real estate business). Most of them in several EU states are already forced to do KYC, so in these countries there would be only minor policy changes. These would have to record the data of the transaction sender and receiver if they participate in one (i.e. a deposit on a centrally managed wallet, or a transaction to a real estate agent affected by the law). It's affecting entities that are already obliged to record these data when they receive bank wires or other fiat-based transactions.

So no, your Bitcoin Core, Electrum etc. are not affected.

This may however affect services like the providers of smartphone wallet software, maybe also blockchain.com or Blockstream's Green Wallet (although at least in the latter two cases I think they could rebrand the service as a kind of "backup service for keys" or so). In any case the keys have to be managed by a central entity.

I don't blame the thread participants, the Bloomberg article isn't "wrong" but pretty poorly written so it can be misinterpreted.

Anyway, I consider this planned legislation extremely harmful. It would place the KYC burden on more companies than now, also potentially on smaller companies; this would mean more targets to hacker attacks, and potentially more danger of identity theft. So the EU is trying to combat one type of crime (money laundering) making other, potentially more threatening types of crime (identity theft) easier.  

[Sithara007]

Thanks for the clarification. This is one of the biggest worries I had for long. Very soon we will be ordered to do KYC on the web-wallets. If I am not wrong, some of them (such as Blockchain.com) have already initiated the KYC process, but till now it was purely optional. Now this reduces the options that we are having right now. If the web wallets need to be backed up with KYC, then we need to store our coins in lite wallets or full wallets that are installed in our laptop or mobile phone. And that will increase the chances of losing the coins, in case the wallet is not backed up and the laptop crashes or gets stolen.

[johnyj]

Anyway, I consider this planned legislation extremely harmful. It would place the KYC burden on more companies than now, also potentially on smaller companies; this would mean more targets to hacker attacks, and potentially more danger of identity theft. So the EU is trying to combat one type of crime (money laundering) making other, potentially more threatening types of crime (identity theft) easier.  

The key is to find a way to reduce the risk without doing KYC, I find out that keep the tx volume small is the most effective way to filter out fraudulent transactions, but a better solution might be needed for larger txs. And to be honest, the larger the tx, the more you need privacy: You don't want an unknown wallet operator to know about your million dollar worth trades, so that they can arrange a robbery with gunman

[johnyj]

Thanks for the clarification. This is one of the biggest worries I had for long. Very soon we will be ordered to do KYC on the web-wallets. If I am not wrong, some of them (such as Blockchain.com) have already initiated the KYC process, but till now it was purely optional. Now this reduces the options that we are having right now. If the web wallets need to be backed up with KYC, then we need to store our coins in lite wallets or full wallets that are installed in our laptop or mobile phone. And that will increase the chances of losing the coins, in case the wallet is not backed up and the laptop crashes or gets stolen.

An interesting question: If KYC is not possible for open source wallets like electrum, would they be banned in future from github? And in future you might need p2p software to download a bitcoin node, since they won't be allowed on any webserver that government can identify the owner and give them KYC responsibility