Members of the European Parliament's Economic Affairs and Home Affairs Committee voted to pass the Anti-Money Laundering Regulation with 99 votes in favor, 8 votes against and 5 abstentions. According to the draft, decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), NFT platforms and DeFi platforms will be subject to AML rules and will be obliged to comply as long as they are "controlled directly or indirectly by identifiable natural and legal persons, including through smart contracts or voting protocols." These categories will be obliged to conduct due diligence on all their customers and report suspicious transactions to the authorities.
If the regulation is passed, credit and financial institutions will need to take due diligence measures when implementing cryptocurrency transactions with a value of more than €1,000 ($1,080). In addition, there are enhanced due diligence measures for agency relationships with cryptocurrency service providers outside the EU, as well as payments involving self-hosted wallets. Commercial relationships with unlicensed entities are prohibited. For commercial crypto payments, transactions with a value of more than €1,000 from self-hosted wallets will be restricted unless the wallet owner is identified.
The regulation will ban anonymous crypto accounts as well as bank accounts. Other anonymous tools, including privacy wallets, mixers, etc., carry higher risks. The committee will also assess whether they should be banned in the future. (The Block)