EU to ban anonymous crypto accounts and privacy coins by 2027

[zasad@]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/european-union-to-ban-anonymous-crypto-and-privacy-tokens-by-2027/ar-AA1E3vlx
The European Union is set to impose sweeping Anti-Money Laundering (AML) rules that will ban privacy-preserving tokens and anonymous cryptocurrency accounts from 2027.

"Under the new Anti-Money Laundering Regulation (AMLR), credit institutions, financial institutions and crypto asset service providers (CASPs) will be prohibited from maintaining anonymous accounts or handling privacy-preserving cryptocurrencies, such as Monero (XMR) and Zcash (ZEC).

“Article 79 of the AMLR establishes strict prohibitions on anonymous accounts [...]. Credit institutions, financial institutions, and crypto-asset service providers are prohibited from maintaining anonymous accounts,” according to the AML Handbook, published by European Crypto Initiative (EUCI)."

[avikz]

I guess Singapore will welcome the CASPs with arms wide open! Companies will quickly separate out their international businesses from the EU business and keep on functioning like normal. I am sure the process has already started in the background and we will start seeing these incidents happening from next year.

What EU is doing, is a part of the large money laundering prevention drive, which is fair from their perspective. But many businesses will be moved to outside countries with friendly regulations.

[yhiaali3]

In fact, due to the large number of laws and regulations issued by the European Union regarding cryptocurrencies (MiCA, AML, AMLD5, Travel Rule, KYC, and now AMLR), I was confused. So I did some searching online, hoping to find a list of all the laws issued by the European Union. I found this:

What is the EU regulating?
The EU is regulating three main types of crypto assets:

Asset-referenced tokens
E-money tokens
Other crypto assets, such as utility tokens.
The union’s regulatory approach covers multiple aspects of the crypto industry, including:

Licensing requirements: Any business providing crypto-related services or dealing with digital assets within the EU requires a MiCA license. This includes companies involved in crypto-asset exchanges, custody, issuance of crypto assets, operation of trading platforms, crypto-related investment consultations and portfolio management, etc. (this list is not exhaustive).
Stablecoin issuance: Strict regulations apply to stablecoins to ensure they are backed by sufficient reserves and remain stable in value.
Consumer protection: Transparency requirements mandate that crypto businesses disclose risks associated with investments.
Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Counter-Terrorist Financing (CTF): The risk-based approach that includes Customer Due Diligence, Enhanced Due Diligence, and reporting requirements is mandated for crypto transactions within the framework of AMLD5.
Market integrity: The EU regulations mandate prohibitions against insider trading and market manipulation within the crypto industry. MiCA prohibits insider dealing, unlawful disclosure of inside information, and market manipulation related to crypto assets. MiCA also prohibits entering into transactions, placing orders to trade, or engaging in any behavior that is misleading regarding the supply, demand, or price of a crypto asset. This includes employing fictitious devices or disseminating misleading information.
Travel Rule: The implementation of the crypto Travel Rule is mandated within the framework of Regulation (EU) 2023/1113 (TFR).

https://sumsub.com/blog/eu-crypto-regulations/

I think it would be a good idea to create a topic here in this section that includes all the European Union laws and their subsequent amendments.

[Z-tight]

I don't think the EU will stop attacking crypto through regulations, i understand that they say it is to prevent money laundering and terrrorism financing, but it is also an attack on privacy and very soon it will be almost impossible to use BTC or crypto privately in the EU. The funny thing is that this is happening at a time when countries in many other regions are gradually accepting BTC in some form or degree, i believe we are safe to say it cannot happen in the EU.

[Free Market Capitalist]

This happens at the same time that in USA chains such as Stake N Shake announce that they will accept bitcoin payments, probably through LN as it is the most practical, and in Europe this war against privacy also entails the future ban of LN.

I think it would be a good idea to create a topic here in this section that includes all the European Union laws and their subsequent amendments.

This is a forum, not an encyclopedia. If you want to create it, that's up to you, but good luck with it. The EU is a mastodontic bureaucratic structure that feeds back on itself, and its infinitude of regulations a way of self-justifying, while crushing innovation, merit, privacy and freedom. I think we don't need an encyclopedia to know that.

[yhiaali3]

I think it would be a good idea to create a topic here in this section that includes all the European Union laws and their subsequent amendments.

This is a forum, not an encyclopedia. If you want to create it, that's up to you, but good luck with it. The EU is a mastodontic bureaucratic structure that feeds back on itself, and its infinitude of regulations a way of self-justifying, while crushing innovation, merit, privacy and freedom. I think we don't need an encyclopedia to know that.

I agree with you that the European Union stifles innovation, but what I meant in my previous post was that due to the sheer number of laws and regulations the EU has issued regarding crypto, We can no longer distinguish between them.  That's why I suggested creating a topic that encompasses all these laws, but I'm not really interested in creating such an encyclopedia.

It is unfortunate that while the United States is moving toward more open and supportive crypto laws, the European Union is taking the opposite approach and stifling the industry.

[btcinfo891]

I don't think the EU will stop attacking crypto through regulations, i understand that they say it is to prevent money laundering and terrrorism financing, but it is also an attack on privacy and very soon it will be almost impossible to use BTC or crypto privately in the EU. The funny thing is that this is happening at a time when countries in many other regions are gradually accepting BTC in some form or degree, i believe we are safe to say it cannot happen in the EU.

Well, the real problem is that removing the privacy and enforcing government control on crypto, removes most reasons to use crypto. If there is no privacy in crypto then one might as well use electronic money issued by the banks in the form of bank debit/credit cards. This kind of money is faster and allows reversal of payments. The only thing electronic money lacks  is privacy, which was present until recently in crypto.

So essentially by removing the privacy from the crypto EU is killing it. I am pretty sure that they understand what is going to happen and they are doing it intentionally. They saw that they don't have the technical means to control the crypto, so they are trying to kill it with regulations.

[mindrust]

They’ve lost their mind completely at this point. Sad… I guess it is time to stock up on the privacy coins while we still can because when they go full retard, it will be impossible to get these coins. But most importantly, it will be illegal to do so.

It is already hard to acquire monero unless you use bisq or semi-decentralized exchanges but it is still possible. When the ban goes live, those semi-decentralized exchanges will probably delist monero as well.

Then, they will go after the bisq devs unless they also delist monero.

We are fucked.

[obtainhigh]

Banning privacy coins and anonymous accounts strips crypto of its core value and pushes innovation out of the EU.

[Free Market Capitalist]

Banning privacy coins and anonymous accounts strips crypto of its core value and pushes innovation out of the EU.

Not only innovation. It also pushes the money out of the EU. What is attracting the most capital and will continue to do so in the coming years are cryptocurrencies and AI. What is the EU doing? Crushing them. Well, that's just it.

[btc-freedom-money]

Monero doesn't care about regulations and laws.
The only issue are on off ramps but it's very hard to stop p2p exchanges so the only thing they can do is go after the devs but it's open source and devs can be anonymous so they are safe as well.
That's the entire point of privacy coins, it's unstoppable and can't be regulated.
They can make it illegal all they want but they can't do anything to stop us from using it.

[NotATether]

This happens at the same time that in USA chains such as Stake N Shake announce that they will accept bitcoin payments, probably through LN as it is the most practical, and in Europe this war against privacy also entails the future ban of LN.

Then we must do everything we can to fight this, if only to protect crypto at large from being harmed.

How? I don't know. Maybe tell your friends and colleagues. But I'm starting to sound like a grassroots activist in this post (lol), so maybe just copy them at this point.

[mindrust]

Monero doesn't care about regulations and laws.
The only issue are on off ramps but it's very hard to stop p2p exchanges so the only thing they can do is go after the devs but it's open source and devs can be anonymous so they are safe as well.
That's the entire point of privacy coins, it's unstoppable and can't be regulated.
They can make it illegal all they want but they can't do anything to stop us from using it.

And how are you planning to use monero when no legit business accept it? No centralized exchange lists it, no business accepts it. What are you gonna do with it? Buy weed from the dark web? You’ll be such an easy target for the police.

We all can see that monero network won’t die off just because they banned monero but its user adoption will and that’s equally important. (I’d say it is even more important since a network which nobody can use has no use.)

There are many shitcoins in the shitcoin graveyard that still has a functioning network and zero transactions in the blocks.

[btc-freedom-money]

Monero doesn't care about regulations and laws.
The only issue are on off ramps but it's very hard to stop p2p exchanges so the only thing they can do is go after the devs but it's open source and devs can be anonymous so they are safe as well.
That's the entire point of privacy coins, it's unstoppable and can't be regulated.
They can make it illegal all they want but they can't do anything to stop us from using it.

And how are you planning to use monero when no legit business accept it? No centralized exchange lists it, no business accepts it. What are you gonna do with it? Buy weed from the dark web? You’ll be such an easy target for the police.

We all can see that monero network won’t die off just because they banned monero but its user adoption will and that’s equally important. (I’d say it is even more important since a network which nobody can use has no use.)

There are many shitcoins in the shitcoin graveyard that still has a functioning network and zero transactions in the blocks.

Yes more adoption is better but you don't get from 0% to 100% in 1 step.
Most businesses don't accept bitcoin, they are using payment middleman which lets the customer exchange bitcoin to fiat and then the business received fiat not bitcoin.
And bitcoin is shit for money anyway. There is no privacy with bitcoin. Bitcoin is only an investment and I think it will be temporary. Bitcoin is easily controlled and regulated, that's why governments aren't as opposed to bitcoin as they are against monero. They can't control monero but they can control bitcoin.
People who want a censorship resistant digital money with privacy will use monero. Adoption starts small but will grow with time. It's just a matter of time until we all of a sudden see in the news "monero beach" somewhere in latin america.