De Nederlandsche Bank NV — the Dutch central bank — has registered about 20 crypto exchanges in the country but is no closer to determining the number of cryptocurrency investors in the country. According to Dutch online news service Nu.nl, regulators like DNB and the Autoriteit Financiële Markten, or AFM, as well as the investor group Vereniging Van Effectenbezitters, or VEB are unsure of the crypto ownership demographic in the Netherlands. Since late 2020, Dutch authorities began enforcing the European Union’s Fifth Anti-Money Laundering Directive with significant implications for crypto businesses. Under the AMLD-5 paradigm, the De Nederlandsche Bank has …

There is often a perceived tension between regulation and innovation. A pervasive narrative has emerged that these two important parts of our society are at odds with each other. In reality, it’s when these two come together as partners that we can effect change and transform our world for the better. Nowhere is this more true than in the blockchain industry. Over the last few months, we’ve seen seemingly reactionary regulators in different parts of the world try to formulate new rules and guidance in silos, without sufficient input from the key stakeholders most knowledgeable about the technology — the …

Crypto.com — the creator of a cryptocurrency exchange, wallet, debit card program and crypto app — is strengthening its compliance toolkit by implementing a commercial solution developed by crypto intelligence firm CipherTrace. CipherTrace's tool, called Traveler, takes its name from being designed to meet the complex requirements of the Financial Action Task Force's so-called “Travel Rule,” which came into effect for Virtual Asset Service Providers, or VASPs, in 2020. The FATF's Travel Rule requires regulators and VASPs — including crypto exchanges, custody providers and over-the-counter trading desks — to gather and share customer data during transactions. This approach broadly follows …

When the European Union’s Sixth Anti-Money Laundering Directive comes fully into force on June 3, every company that provides financial services to cryptocurrency customers and businesses will have to comply with much tougher regulations about when and how they identify customers. Strictly speaking, the 6AMLD has been in force since December 2020, but crypto service providers outside the EU have another two months to come into full compliance. This means all e-wallet providers and digital asset exchanges — among others — that have any European customers will need to be registered with EU authorities and perform stricter Know Your Transaction, …

Fintech, cryptocurrency and mergers and acquisitions are poised to intersect significantly in the coming year. M&A activity is expected to rebound quickly — more than 60% of decision-makers at large companies who were surveyed by FTI Consulting for a February report agree that their company has recently been a target of aggressive M&A, and 39% say their companies are looking at M&A as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. At the same time, the cryptocurrency market is making strides toward mainstream acceptance. As a result, there’s likely to be an uplift in deals involving cryptocurrency assets and valuations throughout 2021. …

How does blockchain analytics software work for financial institutions exposed to crypto? They enable transactions to be monitored on all major blockchains — 24/7 and in real time. The risk associated with incoming and outgoing transactions can be determined — covering high value payments, transfers involving multiple digital assets and/or accounts, as well as transactions that appear to have no logical business explanation. A clearer picture can also be gathered over time by piecing together intelligence from entities making frequent transfers over a specific timeframe. Compliance software companies like Crystal Blockchain enable suspicious patterns to be detected, and for financial …

During 2017’s bull market, most crypto services lacked the proper Know Your Customer and Anti-Money Laundering measures. Even in 2020, 56% of the analyzed 800 cryptocurrency exchanges and over-the-counter trading desks followed weak KYC practices, according to a CipherTrace report. However, the current digital asset rally has turned the crypto market upside down. As a result, KYC and AML have become top priorities for cryptocurrency providers, with many industry players rushing to implement proper measures to better know their customers. And it’s not just the providers that are increasingly demanding KYC, but also their clients. This trend began in January …

Japan has made another step toward adopting cryptocurrency Anti-Money Laundering regulations developed by the Financial Action Task Force, Cointelegraph Japan reports. The Japanese Financial Services Agency announced Wednesday that it will adopt the FATF’s Travel Rule — a set of regulations requiring virtual asset service providers to share transaction data for senders and recipients — by April 2022. “It is required to introduce and implement the Travel Rule regulations in each country,” the FSA noted. The FSA requested the Japanese Virtual Currency Exchange Association, a local self-regulatory crypto organization, to prepare for the implementation of the Travel Rule: “From the …

The United Kingdom's Financial Conduct Authority has included cryptoasset businesses under the financial crimes reporting umbrella eight months after initially announcing plans to do so. The FCA made this known via a policy statement issued on its website on Wednesday. This move comes as the country’s financial regulator has increased the number of firms required to submit annual financial crime report known as “REP-CRIM” from 2,500 to about 7,000. According to the policy statement, the FCA declared that compliance with REP-CRIM reporting was a necessary tool to enable regulators to combat money laundering activities. In its 2020/2021 business plan, the …

Major U.S.-based mining firm Marathon Digital Holdings has announced the launch of what it describes as the first North American Bitcoin mining pool that is “fully compliant with U.S. regulations.” According to a March 30 announcement, the pool adheres to U.S. anti-money laundering guidelines and rules set out by the Office of Foreign Asset Control, or OFAC. Marathon will ensure the transactions processed by its pool meet regulatory standards by using technology exclusively licensed by DMG Blockchain allowing transfers to be filtered. The firm will begin diverting 100% of its current hash power to the new pool from May 1. …

Agustín Carstens, general manager of the Bank for International Settlements, has called for even more crypto regulations stating that virtual currencies are a tool for circumventing financial laws. In an interview with CNBC on Wednesday, the BIS general manager identified money laundering and terrorism financing as areas that require more robust cryptocurrency regulations. Carstens’s comments, a common refrain among crypto critics, come despite the preponderance of established facts indicating that crypto criminality occupies a minute proportion of global cryptocurrency commerce. According to Carstens, cryptocurrencies have a notoriety for being instruments of criminal activities due to the pseudonymous nature of virtual …

Russia’s Federal Financial Monitoring Service, or Rosfinmonitoring — the country’s Anti-Money Laundering body — is policing crypto to fiat transactions. The federal executive body responsible for AML oversight made this known while addressing the members of parliament on Tuesday, according to a report by Russian news agency Regnum. In a meeting with members of the State Duma Committee on the Financial Market, Herman Neglyad, deputy chief of Rosfinmonitoring revealed that the AML watchdog was working with commercial banks to police crypto to fiat transactions, stating: “Banks have already begun to pay attention to exchange operations, that is, when they see …