EU releases details of the law on cryptocurrency regulation

Members of the European Parliament have reached a preliminary agreement on a law on cryptocurrency regulation — the new rules are aimed at preventing money laundering and terrorist financing.

As explained by MEP Ernest Urtasun, the law on cryptocurrency regulation will control service providers to avoid their ties with sanctioned states and criminals (primarily Russia). The regulations do not contain a clause on minimum transactions, which means that the rules will apply to all transfers involving cryptocurrency service providers.

Importantly, the draft law will not regulate transfers between individuals using cryptocurrency wallets. For example, transactions in Ethereum between two MetaMask wallets will not be checked for possible money laundering. However, when interacting with a wallet hosted by a service provider (such as Coinbase-prognozuyut-velychezni-vtraty-cherez-problemy-na-rynku/">Coinbase or FTX), the new rules will apply regardless of the size of the transaction. In this case, if the transfer amount exceeds $ 1,000, the provider will have to confirm the identity of the wallet owner.

According to the official website of the European Parliament, one of the most important cryptocurrency bills, MiCA, is still being discussed. As previously reported, the European Commission is ready to add rules to the MiCA that will regulate the circulation of non-fungible tokens (although officials did not see the need for this before) and consider the environmental impact of cryptocurrencies based on the PoW (Proof-of-work) algorithm.