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 at best have minimal impact on crime, 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.
“The presence of AMLA will not only result in increased AML (anti-money laundering) and CTF (counter-terrorist financing) supervision of selected entities, but will be under enhanced supervision by AMLA for all companies as national supervisory authorities and AMLA’s Executive and/or Regulatory Technical Standards will be binding on all obliged entities, and not just those directly supervised.”
Regulators in other parts of the world are also looking to crack down on illegal activities involving digital assets. In 2022, US Treasury Department Assistant Secretary Wally Adeyemo said the Treasury Department would focus on self-managed crypto wallets.
Adeyemo said at the time that the anonymity they provide could be exploited by bad actors.
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