The European Parliament just gave a thumbs up to new sanctions rules that aim to create a uniform approach across all 27 EU countries.
These sanctions now include crypto service providers, meaning they can freeze assets, including cryptocurrencies.
According to the press release, the law lays out clear definitions for what counts as a violation. This includes failing to freeze funds, ignoring travel bans or arms embargoes, sending funds to sanctioned individuals, or dealing with state-owned companies in sanctioned nations.
Well, it should be noted that the law has not been approved. As the same news item says at the end:
For me it does not present any novelty, simply a harmonization and a clarification that crypto assets can be confiscated, as far as we are concerned, but I doubt that they could not be confiscated until now because it was not formally reflected in a European law.
In general two things are happening in crypto market.
Firstly big corporate with deep pocket are launching Bitcoin exchange traded fund and buying thousands and thousands of Bitcoins. Secondly governments are tightening up the regulatory legislations that can be used against common crypto to users like you and I.
Bitcoin is slowly but surely becoming centralised. Not a great progress to cheer about.
Definitely something to be wary about. What we are looking at is the beginnings of what might be a sort of regulatory capture of cryptocurrencies.
If ETFs become the most common way to invest in cryptocurrencies it becomes easier for governments to regulate the underlying digital assets to death. That is, they can give investors the illusion of choice while slowly smothering the more subversive aspects of cryptocurrencies. Because if you want to profit from crypto you could just invest in an ETF now and every other usage would surely only be for nefarious purposes.
In the European Union, bills become laws after long approvals, but I really dont like this line:
"The EU's restrictive measures apply to a wide range of financial services, including providing "crypto-assets and wallets," the adopted text said. Sanctions can involve freezing assets, including crypto."
This greatly increases the risks for many market participants. I wrote my conspiracy theory that when a wallet contains 10,000 dollars or less, then there is no point in hunting for it unless it is a crime. But as soon as the amount in the wallet increases and the owner transfers the coins to the custodial service, he will see the full power of the sanctions.
It looks like they want to limit payments from "unknown" wallets, which really means anonymous wallets, but most wallets are anonymous, apart from those owned by companies.
This is yet to come, but was already approved by the EU and they're planning to start implementing it in 2025. It's a ban on bitcoin because you won't be able to pay for anything above 3k EUR unless you use a wallet that enforces KYC.
I see this as an attack on self-custody. Imagine that a car dealership accepts bitcoin payments and someone wants to buy a car. They'll be forced to first send bitcoin to a hosted wallet, go through KYC and then send bitcoin as payment for the car, but that will make him vulnerable to scams by wallet provider or anyone who decides to hack the wallet.
I also agree with you that it is something to be wary of, since ETFs were approved and I feared that we were slowly shifting towards centralization.
Since most people are lazy and like someone to keep their assets for them and are accustomed to the banking system, they will easily be attracted to ETFs that are very similar to banks, and this of course suits governments because controlling them is much easier than controlling Bitcoin.
While it's expected to get to similar laws across EU related to crypto, pretty much the same as there are similar laws across EU for money handling, I'd love that people who know better the topic would read more and post more about it.
We know that news are about getting "sensational" stuff, not information, and I fear that something similar goes on for this topic too.
Of course we cannot expect anything good from the politicians, but nowadays bitcoin is getting into the "big money" club, rather than "money for geeks and junkies". This means not necessarily more restrictions for individuals (I hope!), but more clarity for businesses. And from what I've read here ( https://twitter.com/paddi_hansen/status/1771929859704389954 ) this is what's all about (clarity for businesses, at least for now).
These laws will divide the crypto market into two big parts. In one segment only "pure" cryptocurrency will work, the legality of which can be monitored through Travel Rule mechanisms, and the shadow market, which will work, but there will be a constant hunt for addresses with large assets.