Ireland on Thursday published its first national anti-money laundering strategy, bringing crypto-specific measures into the country’s financial-crime framework and singling out transfers involving private wallets held outside regulated firms.
The Department of Finance said most of the EU Transfer of Funds Regulation has already been implemented in Ireland. The remaining elements, it said, create new obligations for crypto-asset service providers, including “enhanced checks” on transfers tied to private crypto wallets and stricter due diligence when firms deal with overseas crypto businesses.
That framework is the Financial Action Task Force, or FATF, travel rule. Under it, information on the originator and the beneficiary must accompany a transaction. Ireland’s strategy document says the measure arrived alongside the Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation, better known as MiCA, which established crypto-asset service providers as a regulated category across the European Union.
A shorter MiCA adjustment period in Ireland
According to ESMA’s list, Ireland gave crypto firms less time to adjust than most member states. MiCA allows an 18-month grandfathering period, but Ireland used a 12-month window. That period closed at the end of December 2025, which means the new obligations now fall on firms that already hold full authorization.
MiCA came fully into force across the bloc on July 1. Brussels is also preparing to reopen the rulebook in 2027 so it can extend coverage to non-EU stablecoin issuers.
Government message runs through 2030
Tánaiste and Minister for Finance Simon Harris said criminal organizations are using new technologies, crypto-assets, and complex international financial networks to conceal profits. He said the launch sends the message that “Ireland will not be a safe place to launder criminal proceeds.”
The strategy runs through 2030. In a post announcing the launch, the Department of Finance said Harris had introduced Ireland’s first National Anti-Money Laundering, Countering Financing of Terrorism and Countering Proliferation Financing Strategy.
June action plan had already flagged crypto misuse
Thursday’s document builds on a 30-point action plan the government published in June alongside its National Risk Assessment. That earlier plan identified crypto-asset misuse as one of Ireland’s evolving financial-crime threats and promised “enhanced safeguards around crypto-assets and digital finance.”
Gambling regulator assigned a crypto-related standard
The clearest domestic crypto measure in the June plan tasked the Gambling Regulatory Authority of Ireland with creating an industry standard for situations where crypto-related activities are accepted as a source of funds. The plan calls for due diligence to verify that the money is legitimate. The measure is scheduled for the second quarter of 2027.
Wider EU tightening still ahead
Ireland’s steps fit into a broader EU timetable that becomes stricter from here. Under the bloc’s Anti-Money Laundering Regulation, crypto-asset service providers are barred from providing or holding anonymous crypto-asset accounts, or accounts that allow transactions to be anonymized or further obscured, including through anonymity-enhancing coins.
The prohibition does not extend to self-hosted wallets. Providers of hardware, software, and self-hosted wallets are exempt if they do not have access to or control over those wallets. Those rules take effect in July 2027 and will be enforced by the Anti-Money Laundering Authority in Frankfurt.
UK reforms and FATF pressure on DeFi
Outside the EU, the United Kingdom is reworking its own regime. HM Treasury published draft reforms in September 2025 that would cut the change-in-control notification threshold for crypto firms from 25% to 10%.
The travel rule Ireland is finishing transposing comes from the Paris-based FATF, whose recommendations are used to assess national frameworks. The body has been pressing members harder on crypto. In a July report, FATF said DeFi platforms with identifiable controllers already fall within its rules and should be supervised like other financial firms. It also found that nearly 93% of surveyed jurisdictions had not yet applied the standards to any qualifying arrangement.