Member Of The E.U. Parliament Says Crypto Transactions Shouldn’t Be Anonymous

[Poker Player]

Hey guys,

A few days ago I opened a similar thread in Legal.

To me what seems important about this, which if approved has very important implications and will affect the market, is the following:

As the bill provides no guidance as to how a crypto service should verify unhosted wallets, this will mean that many will decide to forego transacting with them altogether. Those that continue transacting with unhosted wallets will be required to report all transactions over €1,000.

Not really, actually all transactions, no matter the amount:

"Under existing laws, payees need to be identified for any bank transfer over EUR 1,000 ($1,099). The bloc’s national governments have already said they want to scrap that lower limit when extending the rules to crypto assets – on the basis that large transactions could just be broken up into smaller ones, a practice known as "smurfing."

Urged by national laundering officials, who cite crypto’s use in funding terrorism and child abuse, lawmakers seem set to agree to require identity checks for any size of crypto payment. Even the right-wing lawmakers who oppose the move to de-anonymize transactions appear to acknowledge they won’t win the vote."

The other important point concerns custodial wallets:

"The European Union is considering a regulatory approach that will crack down on cryptocurrency’s “unhosted wallets”—wallets that are not held by a third-party intermediary also known as non-custodial.

Examples of a non-custodial wallet include MetaMask, WalletConnect, or hardware wallets like Ledger and Trezor.

The European Commission has proposed text that will oblige crypto service providers to obtain personal information from customers."

Source: European Union Proposes Crackdown on Non-Custodial Crypto Wallets.

This vote is very important and it actually will take place today. I hope it does not pass, because it will affect business, the price, and set a regulatory example to the rest of the world.

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[so98nn]

Duh?
What is the point of using crypto space then? So Mr. Paul wants us to use crypto but let them know who we are after knowing that we are using crypto because we want to say anonymous. Its like putting duck face on a donkey!

If this due really want to have records of crypto holders then there is very simple mantra for this. You just levy the taxes on the peeps who will be withdrawing their crypto assets into their bank accounts. As long as the assets are in crypto space they have no rights to ask.

But yes, once they withdraw it then it becomes their income and it should be taxed. Just like the Indian Model which is taking 30% taxes for all the crypto transactions made into their bank accounts.

[Wexnident]

It can be an option if they want it to, I mean Centralized exchanges already exist and they already ask their users for KYC, I don't think there's a need to actually make it a mandatory sort of thing, heck even if they wanted to they really can't make it anyway. Plus removing that option to be anonymous pretty much removes a key factor to what makes crypto a good option for transactions. They might as well just have  said to remove that crypto bs out of the world.

[noorman0]

-snip-

Tang compared holding cryptocurrencies to holding cash, saying they’re both stored without the involvement and knowledge of anyone else—including the government. But, unlike cash, cryptocurrencies are extremely mobile and operate in a borderless world, which increases the likelihood they’ll end up “in the wrong place,” he explained.

Have they also ever thought that cash can also be used for small-scale illegal transactions in a smaller scope? Maybe they also have to live in a country with a high crime rate, where minors can also own weapons without a license, drug trafficking by gangsters school-age children using cash. There is no transaction information, everything escapes government monitoring.

That is, if traditional financial methods are not sufficient solutions to combat crime, how can they advocate that way?

[lixer]

Is there a possibility for what he is asking for to happen? He is visibly asking for regulation and I don't know how he intend to achieve this except he will legislate that exchange around his country or operating with his country people begin to register with KYC with the exchange. If he wants to monitor the transactions made, he would better read bitcoin white paper and understand the working.

Yes it is very much possible for him to go about doing that. It is only going to apply to those living in his country and not to those living outside his country. And this is only going to work in centralized exchanges. People in that country that are making use of centralized exchanges, are going to be required to give details of the transactions that they are about to make, for example like the OP has said, details of the sender and receiver.

The laws wouldn’t have anything to do with someone that is not living in that country. Although the issue here is that those who are living in that country will have to give information of who they are sending their Bitcoin to, which means that they are revealing the identity of you that is living outside that country.

[stompix]

Duh?
What is the point of using crypto space then? So Mr. Paul wants us to use crypto but let them know who we are after knowing that we are using crypto because we want to say anonymous.

Then what's the point of banking, you can't use a bank account without an ID.
Why the hell does half of the world population use them and why are they still there? /s

Oh lol. Then I wish him a good luck with non-custodial wallets. I'm pretty sure he will fail with them or at the worst case they would be somewhere outside of EU jurisdiction. Nothing can be seriously changed there.

It's a bit more complicated, it doesn't matter if the sender is outside the EU jurisdiction as long as the receiver is a citizen of a business regulated in the EU, the sender will have to identify himself based on current AML regulations. Once every exchange does that then the amount of non-custodial not labeled wallets will drop to under 1%.

But, it's a proposal, the EU doesn't work by having somebody sponsoring a bill and he gets a few votes and that's all, he is just the chief of a subcommittee, these have no legislative power all they can do is propose amendments and amendments must be voted first and then the entire article must be agreed on by the Council and the Parliament. Since it will be a regulation and not a directive it will need complete approval, hard to see it happening.

[doomloop]

Have they also ever thought that cash can also be used for small-scale illegal transactions in a smaller scope? Maybe they also have to live in a country with a high crime rate, where minors can also own weapons without a license, drug trafficking by gangsters school-age children using cash. There is no transaction information, everything escapes government monitoring.

That is, if traditional financial methods are not sufficient solutions to combat crime, how can they advocate that way?

But the chance for someone to get caught if they do illegalities are much higher than for someone that do illegal acts online or by using cryptos. I don't believe there are countries that are free from crimes but every country should have at least a few crimes that occur from time to time. They are not blind to not noticed it.

Traditional or non traditional money can't do anything to solve the crime but avoidance of crime should start to the people and to their governments. People must be knowledgeable and take extra care of what they are doing, also the governments should enforced stricter rules and won't give an exemption for every criminals that they caught.

[Lightgovernence]

This is complete nonsense!
Light Goverence team not supporting this idea.

If they want to make rules over crypto wallets then what is the difference of paypal or regular banking system ?

Clearly, it can't be serious it's complete dictatorship all the freedoms will be gone ...we need to ask then ?? Is EU represent democraty and freedom. ??

If not then lets ask Kim Yong un or Mr Putin to become EU leader or maybe some other dictators the person who said out this idea should check with medical doctor this cant be taken seriously in free world and in society where people have rights for freedom!

Light Goverence are totally against this idea and this person who said should be checked by doctors as this petson could be dangerous for society.

[Gyfts]

I would contend offshore tax havens do not publicly disclose the identity of transactions made to them. They're commonly used by corporations, the rich and powerful to hide funds and avoid taxes.

You're correct, they're not. And there's a reason why the government won't attempt to go after entities that provide tax havens to the rich, they don't want to upset them. Seems shocking with how much tax revenue they might be able to raise, but they'd rather target the middle class who do not have the resources to fight back.

Regulators in the united states recently proposed bank transfers of $600 be monitored. Now european regulators are proposing that crypto transactions over $1,000 be monitored. These restrictive policies appear to target poor to middle class earners.

The poor usually aren't going to have the funds to exceed the minimum 600 USD or €1,000 requirement for transaction registration. This strictly targets the middle class/upper middle class. The elites will have their off-shore banking enterprises tucked away.

[LUCKMCFLY]

There are many ways that governments will always want to control everything, and one of the best is that transactions are not made anonymous, it is something that seems very out of place, but that many people must learn that this technology should not be manipulated by governments, banks, that is, third parties, it was created precisely so that it could not be controlled.

Now governments must accept cryptocurrencies, the BTC effect has made them accept it, and the only way they have to accept it is through "Regulations" and this is the least shameful way for them to take or try to take control.

[Fortify]

Paul Tang, a member of the E.U. Parliament, believes that transferring cryptocurrencies should require information about the sender and the receiver, just like bank transfers.

Paul Tang, a member of the E.U. Parliament, believes that transferring cryptocurrencies should require information about the sender and the receiver, just like bank transfers.

Tang, who heads the E.U. Parliament’s Subcommittee on Tax Matters, called the pushback against the upcoming crypto AML regulation “another social media storm by crypto bros.”

The crypto industry in Europe is set to fight yet another battle in its war against stifling regulation. This time, the fight is aimed against the European Commission and its latest proposal to extend AML requirements for cryptocurrency wallets.

The revision of the Transfer of Funds Regulation (TFR), first proposed in July 2021, will extend the obligation of financial institutions in the E.U. to accompany transfers of funds with information about who is sending and who is receiving the transaction. The proposal itself represents the practical implementation of the existing FATF travel rule that requires crypto service providers to KYC their customers and is set to be amended in a vote on Thursday, March 31st.

As the bill provides no guidance as to how a crypto service should verify unhosted wallets, this will mean that many will decide to forego transacting with them altogether. Those that continue transacting with unhosted wallets will be required to report all transactions over €1,000.

This caused a stir in the crypto community, with many calling this a blatant violation of privacy. Those backing the bill, however, seem undeterred by this.

Paul Tang, a member of the E.U. Parliament serving as the chair of its Subcommittee on Tax Matters, called the public outcry “another social media storm by crypto bros.”

“Just like bank transfers, transferring crypto like Bitcoin should be accompanied with information about the person sending and receiving the funds,” he wrote on Twitter earlier today.

Tang compared holding cryptocurrencies to holding cash, saying they’re both stored without the involvement and knowledge of anyone else—including the government. But, unlike cash, cryptocurrencies are extremely mobile and operate in a borderless world, which increases the likelihood they’ll end up “in the wrong place,” he explained.

“So the identity of unhosted wallet-holders needs identification—just like you need to identify yourself when you deposit money at the bank. And we want authorities to be notified in case any one person receives a total of €1,000 from unhosted wallets. That is a red flag.”

He said that the threshold of €1,000 in total is an attempt to disable “smurfing” when tracking crypto transactions. Smurfing refers to the act of sending transfers smaller than the limit required by AML regulation, which usually stands at around $10,000. The varying price of cryptocurrencies means that thresholds like these are hard to enforce, which is why the E.U. believes it would be more productive to cover basically all crypto transfers.

Tang says that despite what members of the crypto industry say, these are important tools to fight money laundering and terrorist financing.


However, the future of the crypto industry in the E.U. might not become as bleak as Tang wants it to. Previous attempts to introduce regulation as stifling as this one was rejected by the E.U. parliament and there’s a high likelihood we could see this happening again.

Source: https://www.coinshots.com/news/member-of-the-e-u-parliament-says-crypto-transactions-shouldnt-be-anonymous

This seems to be the end result of what we see with Bitcoin: Do people prefer having a global digital currency which potentially cuts out any middlemen taking a slice of the action or do they want an anonymous form of currency (which will often be portrayed as a means to evade paying their fair share in society)? You can praise all the benefits of Bitcoin while leaving anonymity aside - it's fast, decentralized, allows cross border payments with minimal costs and does not have an individual point of weakness. Ultimately the world is run by governments and those governments want to know generally what money is doing within their borders, so this is a problem that will never go away and needs to be faced.

[longlivecapitalism]

Yeah, I bet they would love to regulate and control everything which is why we shouldn't let them. Otherwise, what is the point of changing from fiat to cryptocurrencies in the first place if they are going to end up being roughly the same thing? Regulation advocates always use the "ties to crime" excuse but there are a lot more people who use crypto legitimately than people who use it to finance crime.