The EU is gearing up to crack down on privacy coins and wallets where users hold their own keys, thanks to a new anti-money laundering initiative. We're expecting these changes, including a ban on crypto mixers, to drop this week. DeFi projects, DAOs, NFT platforms, and others will have to step up their user verification processes.
Lawyer Ksenia Oshurko shared some key points:
🔹 There will be limits on anonymous transactions from non-custodial wallets, capping at €1,000 per transaction.
🔹 Cryptocurrency transactions will be monitored more closely, meaning exchanges and payment services need to step up their tracking.
🔹 Services that anonymize transactions, like cryptomixers, and privacy coins such as Monero (XMR) and Zcash (ZEC) are facing a ban.
🔹 DeFi platforms, DAOs, and NFT marketplaces will have to implement mandatory KYC to verify identities.
💭 So what does this mean for crypto? 1️⃣ Anonymity in crypto is at risk private transactions and confidential coins might be banned in the EU. 2️⃣ DeFi is under pressure these platforms might have to gather user data, which goes against the whole point of decentralization. 3️⃣ Exchanges will need to tighten their rules, adding more pressure on projects serving EU users.
We have discussed about this before on some threads. Bitmover posted recently that Bitstamp sent him email about the Mica Regulations which has began.
If you click on the link that you posted up there, the news was published on the 16th of January which was almost 3 months ago.
I agree with you that this is not new news, but there is a lot of information noise right now.
"On February 1, 2025, the DAC8 directive came into force in the European Union, fundamentally changing the rules for crypto asset holders and international businesses. Financial authorities now have expanded powers to monitor digital assets, offshore accounts, and international transactions. Lets break down how this affects businesses."
https://fbs-tax.com/en/mediacenter/news-en/eu-tightens-control-over-cryptocurrencies-and-offshore-assets-what-businesses-and-investors-need-to-know/
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If this thread is redundant here, request that it be deleted or moved.
This is what me and other real crypto adopters have been saying for so many years but no one listens. No one understand anything about bitcoin. Everyone just says "bitcoin is decentralized and can't be controlled" then they continue saying "bitcoin will be regulated and controlled, it's going to be great then investors will come". It's so stupid to listen to general bitcoiner population, not all are stupid but if you understand what I'm saying then congrats, you are one of the smart people.
If it's regulated then it's not decentralized because regulation is centralized.
Bitcoin should have been censorship resistant but to be censorship resistant it needs to have strong privacy like Monero. Very sad how bitcoin turned out. But we have to do our best and not lose hope. Keep fighting for freedom! Teach others the truth and maybe we can turn around everything and save bitcoin.
I don't think it is redundant. This is a very relevant fact and regulation which is impacting users of many countries and exchanges.
There are too many things to discuss, such as how to verify those addresses, how effective this can be to AML policies , how invasive it is to innocent investors, etc . All that can't fit in one topic
Mandotary KYC for Defi platforms? LOL that's a joke? They will just kill crypto innovation in Europe. Because crypto platforms can incorporate them in a country at the opposite side of Earth, in just few days, or even hours. We are seeing that with crypto casinos. And some platforms are not even incorporated anywhere actually. In the end many services will just go hide on TOR or I2P to escape legal persecutions, and it will be even more difficult for authorities to monitor them.
They will NOT 'just kill crypto innovation in Europe'. It will allow innovation that has to have a viable business use case and is based on a (fairly) sound and legal basis as opposed to the early scam and scandal ridden Wild West days of ICO's and their later variants such as Ordinals, Runes, meme coins, etc.
Yes it will require records of who owns and runs the businesses. ALL legitimate businesses no matter what they are need that. DeFi projects have people behind the scenes running and maintaining them. Even if just to boost customer confidence in them, those people must be known. You view that as a 'problem' why?
Setting up a platform in a country that does not regulate it will be of zero use to users in the EU (and USA) unless you intend to ONLY use crypto to pay for all of your needs. As soon as you (try to) exchange your crypto into fiat you will be screwed because your assets have no proof of origin.
Come to think of it, even just using crypto for your expenses will not work unless you only deal through the black markets because all reputable vendors will also want 'clean and verifiable' coins/tokens/etc as payment.
Unfortunately, not. What do you expect? They are pushing CBDCs, they are trying to put fear into people with the survival kit to spend a lot on armaments that people are going to pay for through inflation and worse public services, they are pushing digital identity for total control worthy of 1984, that they want to control everything that is done in the DEX is just a logical consequence of the totalitarian state we are heading towards.
No, because it was already dead. You can't kill what is dead. And not only in cryptocurrencies. In technology in general, when a startup succeeds in Europe in its beginnings, it ends up moving to the USA due to the huge amount of regulations and the difficulty to raise money that they have in the EU.
Well, they want to ban VPNs, so I imagine Tor will be in the same package. Let's see if we realize that the EU is heading towards a 21st century USSR.
Alright so, I always heard Bitcoin mixers aren't get banned because the government didn't publicizing if they really ban of Bitcoin mixers usage, except they use to laundering illegal coins. But now, the EU already take the lead to ban Bitcoin mixers, which mean regardless what the motives, they restrict all the coins came from mixers.
Bye bye privacy or EU citizen, let's start to use Coinbase exchange to buy, sell and hold coins, Coinbase exchange is very safe.
This is insane, as it forces users to hold their coins in centralized entities, and then there is no guarantee that those central entities will safeguard their assets. It is like rebuilding banks within cryptocurrencies.
AML politicians absolutely don't care about cryptocurrency exchange users and investors. According to the usage agreement, customers will always be in an unequal position and will not be able to challenge their rights in court.
Another problem with DeFi is that already all the stablecoins are centralised and have a freeze function. You can lose your assets at any time.
Well when your neighbor is threatening with invading countries and then your main partner cozies up with this neighbor then you are forced to rush into an arms race to protect yourself just in case, so I can see how EU wants to build their own army. Nobody believed Russia would actually invade Ukraine and start bombing the country until it happened, so you have to be ready for these things before it becomes a reality so you have more leverage in both protection and further negotiations (EU is being ignored because they don't have a bunch of nukes, unfortunately it's the truth). So basically, they have to improve their defense.
Of course the problem is the absurd regulation that thinks everyone using a mixer is automatically a criminal. How are you supposed to get any privacy in Bitcoin if you dont use a mixer? if you send a transaction then eveyone can see your account balances on that address, so it's only normal to use mixers. But it's clear EU doesn't understand how Bitcoin works.
This issue with Monero has been going on for some time now and, if I'm not mistaken, many exchanges have already delisted it. These regulations end up becoming very restrictive and prevent cryptocurrencies and the freedom they have offered since their creation from thriving, driving away users and investors.
Um what part of BTC being from its inception a public ledger don't you get? Satoshi never ever said anything about it having privacy features. It was designed to be a trustless yet verifiable system that does not rely on middle-men. Others can not only see balances on that address but also easily track all inputs and outputs associated with it. From there they can step through those addresses as well.
Of course, finding out who owns those addresses is a different story and much harder to do if none of the addresses have been KYC'd or are previously linked to known entities.
That said, if folks want to try and obscure their Tx's - that's their problem. I for 1 cannot think of a legitimate reason to do that. I'm perfectly fine with mine being a public record.
As for the bureaucrats in the EU not understanding Bitcoin much less other crypto - can't argue with that...
I don't really understand what ICOs have to do with Dex and Defi platforms to be honest? Dapps are designed to be trustless in order to avoid being scammed by custodial platforms, it's the opposite of all those shady ICO projects.
Maybe you don't know it because you're a bitcoin maximalist(it would explain why you don't care about Defi and Dapps) but currently most crypto wallets are offering swap features using Dex services without any KYC. So if those coins will be rejected by fiat exchanges and merchants, 90% of circulating coins are going to be worthless. In addition I don't think EU authorities will be able to stop p2p exchanges, that is to say marketplaces where people are exchanging fiat and cryptos each other. On top of that Switzerland still allows to exchange cryptos for fiat without KYC when transactions are under 1000.
While the United States is moving toward cryptocurrencies and becoming more open to third-party privacy-related services like mixers, Europe is unfortunately moving in the opposite direction, imposing more restrictions and restrictions.
The bad news for regular users is the "Mandatory KYC for Decentralized Finance (DeFi) Platforms, Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs), and Non-Fungible Token (NFT) Marketplaces" law, as KYC has become mandatory for users when using these decentralized services.
However, the somewhat good news is that the limit on anonymous payments from non-custodial wallets is limited to 1,000 per transaction. I believe this provision will not be an obstacle for regular users, as most of their transactions are less than 1,000.
You have a public address accepting donations for example, then if you send money to someone from that address, that someone can google your address and find out that you participate here, they will be able to browse your posting history, see if you have been making money on sig campaigns, see if you are an interesting target or not ("oh look, this guy has been posting for 10 years, he may have a lot of bitcoin...") and so on, so this sucks to anyone that likes privacy. This is a fact, I don't care what satoshi said or didn't say. So if you want to avoid this, you have to send your balances to another address, and send from there, but that is only one layer of privacy, real privacy is obtained through mixing the coins. Thinking that mixing coins is inherently bad is the same as thinking any privacy tool is inherently bad, same concept and same conclusions that leads to laws like this.
Privacy solves everything. Bitcoin barely has any.
Every bitcoiner with intelligence is crying now because of evil regulations destroying bitcoin.
Everyone in monero has been attacked by regulations for a long time but no one cares because government can't do anything to stop monero, monero can't be regulated and can't be tracked. Privacy solves all problems.
Bitcoin is like Windows OS. Microsoft is government and windows updates are regulations. Every time microsoft has a new update, all windows users are crying. Every time government makes more regulations, every bitcoiner is crying.
Monero is like Linux. It can't be regulated. It is freedom.
Bitcoin has to change. If it doesn't add strong privacy then it's only a matter of time until monero flips bitcoin.
All totalitarian states so far have either crumbled under their own weight or have been destroyed from the outside. I think that will be the fate of EU as well.
If they decide to ban Tor/I2P they will most likely go for some variant of DPI (deep packet inspection). However I think it is relatively easy to modify these protocol so that they won't be easily recognizable by the DPI firewalls that they will be using. But yeah, this will not stop them from trying to put everything under total control.