The European Union has decided to deal with money laundering for once and for all. The plan for the annihilation of the issue lies in creating a new agency. The Anti-Money Laundering Authority (AMLA) will be the EU’s body in charge of preventing money laundering, as well as putting an end to terrorism financing.
The agency will develop a new set of measures, some of which will be focused on the world of cryptocurrencies as well. A proposed measure that got in the spotlight as soon as the EU made it public is the one regarding anonymous crypto wallets.
The proposed measure would make Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies traceable, as well as make the use of completely anonymous wallets illegal. Instead, the service providers would need to carry out due diligence on the users.
What made the crypto community feel uneasy is that the measure could bring forth the end of cryptocurrencies as we know them now. Some fear that if anonymity is removed from the equation, crypto transfers would become pretty much the same thing as traditional bank transfers.
Is This the End of Anonymous Crypto Wallets in Europe?
Anonymous bank transactions are already banned in the European Union and the same fate could happen to cryptocurrency transfers. However, things aren’t that dark as some cryptocurrency enthusiasts fear.
The thing is that if the new rules are set in motion, they will effectively prohibit the use of anonymous crypto services – crypto custody and third-party exchange accounts.
In layman’s terms, this means that the EU would prevent you from using anonymous/fake accounts to store or sell Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. However, if you go with self-custody (installing a crypto wallet on your device), you will be able to keep the assets anonymously, as well as to spend them anonymously.
The new law would guarantee that your crypto decisions will remain secret to everyone but you, unless you use them for illicit purposes.
Talk About EU’s New Laws Makes BTC Tumble Down
The news about the EU’s plans of tackling money laundering in the crypto universe caused panic among cryptocurrency enthusiasts on social media. News outlets didn’t help as well; actually, they just poured oil to the fire with headlines suggesting the end of Bitcoin.
As a result, the price of the most popular cryptocurrency in the world went down. It dropped under $30,000 for the first time in a while. Bitcoin rebounded quickly as soon as it became clear what the new EU proposals actually meant.
At the moment of writing, the price of Bitcoin is just below $32,100. However, we could see a major increase in near future. The reason behind the optimism is that Elon Musk has recently revealed his plan to re-install Bitcoin as one of the accepted payment methods at Tesla.
According to the billionaire, Tesla will “most likely” reconcile with Bitcoin once the cryptocurrency reaches a 50% renewable mining rate. As a reminder, when Tesla started accepting BTC as a payment method, it launched its price to a surge that saw it going over $60,000.
