European Union to ban anonymous crypto and privacy tokens by 2027

[sausalitox]

The EU government has rolled out it's strict measures to fight privacy and freedom. Of course I support reasonable means adopted by the government to curb financial crimes but this shouldn't trample on individual rights to privacy and freedom. There is need for the government to consult with key players in the industry before such policies are made.

Banning anonymous payments will affect law abiding who are using these privacy coins for genuine purposes. Some people usually buy items privately or want to make an anonymous donation.

People living in the EU would have to start devising means of bypassing these restrictions. Some businesses and individuals might consider leaving that jurisdiction.

As a resident in Europe, I totally agree with you. Criminality must be shut down as much as possible, but the European Union's Comission is implementing certain measures that are delimiting our financial liberties with undemocratic policies, since they have not been consulted with European population.

I certainly believe that government should not know every economic move of ours, since lots of people want to donate anonymously or trade with privacy (in XMR forums are normally traded items such as ecologic lemons and other feastables). For those reasons and even more, countries that conform the EU are declining in every aspect and they not represent anymore what they used to.

Until the moment, there are some over-regulated countries such as Spain (which has one of the most inquisitive revenue systems worldwide, being only overpassed by the Mexican SAT and the IRS) and others in which there are lesser restrictions like, for instance, Latvia or Estonia.

[NotFuzzyWarm]

Well this article of Cointelegraph and its title seem to mostly be a clickbait actually. Because those claims come from the interpretation of some regulatory texts by European Crypto Initiative (EUCI), written in a book, so it's not an official statement from european legal institutions as I understand fortunately.
Besides that, it doesn't seem to concern individuals, only platforms actually.

That does not surprise me in the least. Most crypto e-magazines are not just aggregators of articles, papers and news releases but also make money running pay-to-post stories as well. In this case the 'story' being no doubt being provided by the books publisher.

[Rustam Meraj]

That is good point about how fighting scams may affect our privacy when using cryptocurrencies. It makes sense to feel worried when actions which are stopping bad things can also lead to us having less control over our money.
Like you said European Union is planning to stop anonymous crypto accounts and privacy focused coins like Monero by year 2027. Article you shared explains that this is part of bigger plan to stop people from using crypto for illegal activities like money laundering. EU wants to know who is using cryptocurrencies and how much money they have in them and when they send or receive them. Even though aim is to reduce scams it also means that financial activities of people using crypto will be watched more closely.

[DeathAngel]

The EU are quite hostile towards crypto, total self serving, ignorant bureaucrats. They hate the thought of not being able to control how much money you have & what you spend it on. If you have any no KYC crypto then treasure it, keep it safe, it could be very valuable in time.

[dkbit98]

EU don't want people to have any privacy at all, but they are doing it gradually.
In the same time they are planing to ban privacy coins, EU is forcing people to reduce use of cash, and in the end they will try to fully ban cash.
ANyone trying to withdraw €3,000 or more from their own account could face up to €150,000 fine!
https://euroweeklynews.com/2025/04/28/planning-to-withdraw-cash-in-spain-you-could-now-face-a-e150000-fine/

[Mate2237]

I think that this is a welcome development because going through the news the regulators are only concerned about making sure the crypto related fraud is eliminated because alot of person's has used crypto currency to commit crimes bringing a bad name to crypto as a whole so this move is a welcome development to me, most of these memecoins that are been launched into the market should be regulated as most of them has not shown any reasonable growth rate ever since coming into the market.


So any anonymous crypto currency that has no base should be band and removed from the market as most altcoins has been used by scammers for the wrong reasons

[Z-tight]

Cracking down on privacy coins might help with fraud,

I don't agree, criminals have been stealing and laundering funds long before crypto and privacy coins were created, and so they will always find a suitable tool to perpetrate their crime. The EU would claim that most of their strict moves is to counter fraud and terrorism, but i see it as aggressive regulations aimed at limiting privacy, and we all know well that governments do not like privacy and they want to be able to watch and monitor what you do with your own money.

[NotATether]

Money laundering, phishing, ransomware, scammers, Ponzi Schemes, cryptotheft will all continue to exist in 2027 but these imbeciles think that banning privacy coins and severely restricting Bitcoin will magically end all these things.

It's like they live on a different universe from the rest of us.

[Felicity_Tide]

Money laundering, phishing, ransomware, scammers, Ponzi Schemes, cryptotheft will all continue to exist in 2027 but these imbeciles think that banning privacy coins and severely restricting Bitcoin will magically end all these things.

It's like they live on a different universe from the rest of us.

It's so sad that we live in a world where those who ought to give account and say things the way they are, choose to find something else to put the blame on, making a scapegoat out of it. tbh, the bottom line is, they are after privacy, but with money laundering as an excuse, they've found a perfect reason to strike.

There are so many ways people launder money, and I want to believe there are still those who uses shell companies and supposed legitimate businesses. But to them, crypto just seem to be the big deal. What a shame.

[Donneski]

The funniest thing is that fraud will still continue to exist but they are making moves that will make people have no privacy and this will indirectly be connected to lack of freedom later just like this one.

This is not just about the ban on privacy coin like monero but mostly about banning anonymous accounts. They just want to know everyone having cryptocurrencies and the amount of coins or tokens that they have. They want to know when you send coins and when you receive coins. They just want to know all your moves pertaining cryptocurrencies.

This is the news: https://cointelegraph.com/news/eu-crypto-ban-anonymous-privacy-tokens-2027

They want to ban anonymous accounts and privacy coins by 2027.

Since the EU have seen that it's impossible to control the activities of members of the crypto community, they've been adopting policies that neutralizes privacy which is absolutely against one of the core objectives of Satoshi Nakamoto in creating Bitcoin. Below is an excerpt from the Satoshi's White Paper that clearly shows that this policy of the EU does contravene the vision of privacy in Bitcoin.

 “The traditional banking model achieves a level of privacy by limiting access to information to the parties involved and the trusted third party. The necessity to announce all transactions publicly precludes this method, but privacy can still be maintained by breaking the flow of information in another place: by keeping public keys anonymous.”

So in effect of this policy of banning anonymous crypto usage, the EU is  simply moving toward total traceability, undermining the original spirit of Bitcoin as a censorship-resistant and privacy-respecting financial system.

Personally, I think they just want to discourage the use of Bitcoin Bitcoin and cryptocurrency activities in the West because I know the majority of Bitcoiners and members of the crypto community will not accept to work with these crypto limiting policies.

[Synchronice]

Anonymous accounts are a new thing to me, I didn't know if such a thing existed. By the way, I understand that on paper their motives sound like something that the majority of herd will agree but I have a question, who will be responsible for me Identity Verification documents? Who will be responsible that they won't get leaked? You ask me to submit KYC but you don't give me a guarantee that my KYC documents will be safe, that doesn't sound fair.
If the EU creates a KYC system that will be managed and will be taken care of by the EU officials, then I'm kinda okay with that but otherwise, it is very unfair for customers and very arrogant action from them.

[death69]

What’s more concerning is how fast this is being normalized. On paper, transparency, anti-fraud, anti-money laundering, right? Reflects a regulatory victory. But zoom out and you’ll see the infrastructure being built here isn’t just about stopping “bad actors”. It is about constantly monitoring everyone, regardless of guilt. Every crypto exchange will become a surveillance node. Anonymous accounts will be gone by 2027, privacy coins delisted, and any non-compliant transaction will probably be detected, frozen, or outright prohibited. However, fraud has not decreased. Billion in illegal crypto flow while regulation ramping up. What then is exactly being targeted here? The means of fraud, or the freedom to transact without permission?

Here it stops being about Monero or Zcash and begins to be about the EUDI Wallet, CBDCs, and programmable money. By the time the EU Digital Identity Framework comes entirely into effect (2026), they will see your digital health ID, travel records, tax profile, not only your crypto.

Indeed, privacy coins will be pushed under ground. That’s already happening. Monero volume is up, but liquidity is thinning. Regular people will definitely lose their access to financial discretion, while criminals will always adapt (they always do - mixers, ZK tech, secret layer-2s).

[Abiky]

The funniest thing is that fraud will still continue to exist but they are making moves that will make people have no privacy and this will indirectly be connected to lack of freedom later just like this one.

This is not just about the ban on privacy coin like monero but mostly about banning anonymous accounts. They just want to know everyone having cryptocurrencies and the amount of coins or tokens that they have. They want to know when you send coins and when you receive coins. They just want to know all your moves pertaining cryptocurrencies.

This is the news: https://cointelegraph.com/news/eu-crypto-ban-anonymous-privacy-tokens-2027

They want to ban anonymous accounts and privacy coins by 2027.

This is not surprising news. Especially when the EU has always been anti-crypto. The ECB's president is a Bitcoin hater, so european crypto users should expect the worse in the long run. Fortunately, there are ways to circumvent bans/restrictions. My guess is that the EU will prohibit people from buying/selling privacy coins through centralized exchanges. Everyone will begin using alternative means to circumvent this (such as trading on a decentralized exchange, using a P2P trading platform, or buying/selling Face-to-Face (in-person).

We know the deep state wants to get its nose in our private life. So any cryptocurrency that obfuscates transactions from the government, will be ultimately frowned upon. I hope things change for the better in the future as europeans elect politicians/government officials that are pro-crypto. Who knows what will happen before the 2027 deadline?

[m2017]

The funniest thing is that fraud will still continue to exist but they are making moves that will make people have no privacy and this will indirectly be connected to lack of freedom later just like this one.

This is not just about the ban on privacy coin like monero but mostly about banning anonymous accounts. They just want to know everyone having cryptocurrencies and the amount of coins or tokens that they have. They want to know when you send coins and when you receive coins. They just want to know all your moves pertaining cryptocurrencies.

This is the news: https://cointelegraph.com/news/eu-crypto-ban-anonymous-privacy-tokens-2027

They want to ban anonymous accounts and privacy coins by 2027.

Well, what did you expect? That Big Brother would simply allow using cryptocurrencies? So to speak, outside the standard financial system, eluding his gaze? The more capitalization this industry gets, the more attention it will attract from the regulator. Of course, they want to know all the information about transactions, wallet contents, and will gladly even look into your @ss (what if you hid a couple of tokens there). These are just the first stages. Also, at one of the stages, they will force you to pay taxes on your cryptocurrencies. In the future, crypto users will be severely punished for not complying with the regulator's requirements.

[kotajikikox]

The funniest thing is that fraud will still continue to exist but they are making moves that will make people have no privacy and this will indirectly be connected to lack of freedom later just like this one.

I wonder how will these authorities respond if there are still fraud even if they have already banned all kinds of anonymous coins and platforms. Will they continue to blame these anonymous coins to justify their need for full control?

This is not just about the ban on privacy coin like monero but mostly about banning anonymous accounts. They just want to know everyone having cryptocurrencies and the amount of coins or tokens that they have. They want to know when you send coins and when you receive coins. They just want to know all your moves pertaining cryptocurrencies.

People fall for this kind of propaganda. They actually believe that anonymous coins and platforms are the reason for fraud in the crypto space. But the reality is that these authorities just want to have full control. Which obviously defeats the core of crypto which is decentralization.

[finaleshot2016]

Lol. very non-sense, they're targetting crypto but tbh it won't decrease the crime rates in their countries even if they ban crypto or they require people to link their accounts to themselves. Crypto isn't the major reason why people still get do their crimes, people still prefer doing cold cash in transactions for illegal things. Well, I think if government is finding ways, crypto will also find their ways too and that's why P2P do exists, no one can stop crypto.

The government just want to have full control in everything, of course they want to control the cash flow and don't want some normal people have freedom and exit to the system they made to tax people and use that tax money for personal interest.

[shield132]

Why does it take them so much? 2027 is too far. Btw in this article they claim that regulations will be here to strengthen financial transparency and prevent money laundering and terrorism financing but if they truly want to do all of these, then why don't they implement blockchain technologies in public sector? They can make it transparent how people in government earn and spend money, which will be true transparency. If they want my KYC, then I want their KYC too, doesn't this sound fair?

[Abiky]

Why does it take them so much? 2027 is too far. Btw in this article they claim that regulations will be here to strengthen financial transparency and prevent money laundering and terrorism financing but if they truly want to do all of these, then why don't they implement blockchain technologies in public sector? They can make it transparent how people in government earn and spend money, which will be true transparency. If they want my KYC, then I want their KYC too, doesn't this sound fair?

I know, right? They're doing this in the guise of preventing money laundering, terrorism financing, and tax evasion, but it's all an attempt to lure people away from crypto. The EU doesn't want people to gain true financial freedom and privacy. Otherwise, they will lose control/power for good. This is typical of the "deep state".

Eventually, the EU will launch a CBDC of its own (CBDC) and declare all cryptocurrencies "illegal" (including Bitcoin). Fiat on/off ramps for crypto will be either shut down for good or heavily-scrutinized by the government (by enforcing KYC/AML rules). Monero users don't need to worry about this, as long as they follow the necessary security measures (OPSEC). Don't let the government know or suspect you're holding a privacy coin, and there should be nothing to worry about. Who can stop truly-decentralized privacy coins and anonymization techniques, anyways?

[MinoRaiola]

This is not just about the ban on privacy coin like monero but mostly about banning anonymous accounts. They just want to know everyone having cryptocurrencies and the amount of coins or tokens that they have. They want to know when you send coins and when you receive coins. They just want to know all your moves pertaining cryptocurrencies.

Your are right. They want to know who owned Bitcoin and other coins. And why? Because they want to tax profits or keep an eye on the people with the assets. In Europe, a few exchanges have already reacted to this and transactions away from the exchange can only be made if you give the name of the owner or confirm that the address is your own. I have written here in the forum in a local board, that I believe that p2p will grow. The problem is the fraud, but there are trustworthy people, including here in the forum, with them you can trade and that is what I will do.

[Ucy]

The solution to this, as always, is to go back to Bitcoin standard and use Bitcoin as it's supposed to be used, which is, p2p non-custodial and possibly decentralized transactions.

By the way, I think that would be implemented on centralized platforms because anonymous accounts can't be banned on decentralized system that's based on Bitcoin standard. Besides, it's basically unsafe to reveal people real identities and link the identities to their crypto assets on a system that's as transparent as Bitcoin.  
This will likely be a typical kyc verifications mainly on centralized custodial wallets, exchanges and platforms . The centralized non-custodial exchanges/wallets would do well if they become decentralized and implement a decentralized kyc and/or auto-checks on transactions/coins to ensure they are clean or in compliance with reasonable standards before getting to recipient addresses. The normal decentralized platforms could also implement this.

In regards to privacy tokens, I think it would be better to prevent them from being used for evil or criminal activities rather than an outright ban. They could be very useful to innocent users in times of tyranny.