Essentially, what FinCEN wants is to require banks, cryptocurrency exchanges, and other money services businesses (MSB) to collect identifying data about anyone who wants to transfer $3,000 or more to or from an “unhosted” wallet.
The IRS, FBI and other U.S. law enforcement agencies may be trumpeting their success in breaking up everything from child porn rings to al-Qaeda funders, but bankers are not so confident in their ability to even detect crypto-related transactions.
The move follows last month’s indictment of now-former BitMEX CEO Arthur Hayes, along with co-founders Benjamin Delo and Samuel Reed (the only one arrested), on charges of violating the Bank Secrecy Act and conspiring to violate the Bank Secrecy Act by failing to put sufficient anti-money-laundering safeguards in place.
More than half of all cryptocurrency exchanges are so lax about making customers prove their identity that they can be considered money-launderer friendly.
