By Nathan Ferguson
The advocates of the cryptocurrency are not pleased with the rule that is scheduled for being reviewed in the current year on the behalf of the United States Treasury Department, as the contention escalates among the authorities’ intention to stand against terrorist financing as well as money laundering, along with the desire of crypto industry to avoid the surveillance. The crypto exchanges’ mandate to addresses and names of the consumers to transact crypto funds to private wallets may get brought to the front in the United States.
The respective rule was included in the U.S. Treasury Department’s semiannual Agenda and Regulatory Plan, which also incorporates the most significant regulations that are also to be implemented expectedly. The rule, that had initially been proposed during 2020 on the behalf of FinCEN (Financial Crimes Enforcement Network) – which is a U.S.-based regulator for money laundering – may be taken into consideration for another time.
At first, a few of the crypto proponents asserted that the individuals might not have control over the respective rule whereas the others claimed that the rule might compel the people into a heavy undertaking to guarantee compliance. Steven Mnuchin – the Treasury Secretary – originally promoted the rule. It appeared on the website of Treasury, with a window of 15-day comments. The respective time was then extended to another 15 days on the behalf of FinCEN.
The clarity over the latest rules
Initially, FinCEN dissected the rule into a couple of subjects. One was that the rule would require the transaction reports if the amount of transactions to the unhosted private wallets exceeds above $10K, just like the banks’ demand for more than 10K transactions. The other rule was termed as a personal information rule, requiring the banks to take a record of the consumers’ details as well as that of the counterparty in the case of their involvement in the transactions exceeding the amount of $3K to the unhosted wallets.
The definition of money
Both the Federal Reserve, as well as, FinCEN are additionally pursuing the clarification of the definition of money, in line with the Bank Secrecy Act to make certain that cryptocurrencies are compliant with the very rules that are followed by the fiat currencies. The agencies desire the revised proposal to implement the rules over the cross-border as well as domestic transactions taking account of convertible virtual currency, being the means of exchange (like cryptocurrency) having an equivalent value like currency or plays a role to substitute for it, however, lacks a status of a legal tender, the document noted.