According to a post published by Coin Center on Oct. 5, the US Treasury Department is removing from consideration two long-pending cryptocurrency rule proposals tied to so-called unhosted wallets and crypto mixing under the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN.
Thresholds in the original proposal
Under the proposal, financial institutions would have been required to collect and retain counterparty information for transactions involving unhosted wallets when the amount was above $3,000. Transactions of more than $10,000 in the same category would also have had to be reported to FinCEN.
Coin Center calls the move a financial privacy win
Coin Center said both rules threatened to significantly expand financial surveillance of cryptocurrency users. Crypto advocates had repeatedly urged the Treasury Department to drop the proposals. The group said that even if the measures had been dormant for years, their pending status left open the possibility that Treasury could revive an approach centered on collecting growing amounts of information about lawful crypto transactions, regardless of whether that collection was narrowly designed around genuine illicit finance risks. Coin Center said the formal withdrawal shuts that door and marks a major victory for financial privacy.
About Coin Center
Coin Center was founded in 2014 in Washington, D.C. by Jerry Brito and Robin Weisman. It is one of the earliest crypto policy think tanks in Washington. The organization says its mission is to defend the right of individuals to build and use open cryptocurrency networks, including the right to write and run code, form peer-to-peer networks, and do so in private.