European Union (EU) officials greenlight new restrictions on anonymous transactions involving crypto assets and cash.
Patrick Breyer, a German member of the EU Parliament, reports on the social media platform prohibit cash payments over €10,000 ($10,862), anonymous cash payments over €3,000 ($3,258) and crypto payments to hosted wallets with no threshold.
According to Breyer, the crackdown will result in citizens losing a large part of their financial freedom.
“Banning anonymous payments across the board would have minimal impact on crime at best, but it would deprive innocent citizens of their financial freedom.”
According to Irish law firm Dillon Eustace, the EU will establish the Anti-Money Laundering Authority (AMLA) to oversee the new rules, which is likely to lead to increased scrutiny of all companies, not just those that will be under direct supervision are placed.
“AMLA’s presence will not only result in increased AML (Anti-Money Laundering) and CTF (Counter-Terrorism Financing) oversight for selected entities, but for all companies, as national supervisory authorities, will be under increased supervision by AMLA and AMLA’s executive and/or Regulatory Technical Standards will be binding on all obliged entities, and not only on directly supervised entities.”
Regulators in other parts of the world are also looking to crack down on illegal activities involving digital assets. In 2022, US Treasury Department Deputy Secretary Wally Adeyemo said the Treasury Department would focus on self-custody crypto wallets.
Adeyemo said at the time that the anonymity they provide could be exploited by bad actors.
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