The European Parliament has taken the first steps for new legislation against money-laundering that covers cryptocurrency transactions, which are an important part of illicit activities today.
Members of the European Parliament from the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) and the Committee on Civil Liberties (LIBE) have agreed on adopting (with 93 votes in favor, 14 against, and 14 abstentions) draft legislation for more transparent crypto asset transactions.
“Under the new requirements agreed by MEPs, all transfers of crypto-assets will have to include information on the source of the asset and its beneficiary, information that is to be made available to the competent authorities,” reads the Parliament’s
announcement.
The new rules will cover transactions from private-held cryptocurrency wallets without considering transaction thresholds, which erases any limits for anonymous transactions - previous proposal allowed up to €1000 to be transferred without giving any details about the sender and the recipient.
The reasoning behind this is that transaction thresholds make no sense for regulating cryptocurrency assets because they can be easily circumvented due to their virtual nature. Simply put, it would be practically viable for money launderers to perform numerous transactions under the set threshold.
“Illicit flows in crypto-assets move largely undetected across Europe and the world, which makes them an ideal instrument for ensuring anonymity,” commented Ernest Urtasun of the Greens Party.
“As illustrated by all the recent money-laundering scandals, from the Panama Papers to the Pandora Papers, criminals thrive where rules allowing for confidentiality allow for secrecy and anonymity. With this proposal for a regulation, the EU will close this loophole.”
