Key Takeaways
- Lithuania’s Finance Ministry is seeking to ban non-custodial crypto wallets.
- New regulation additionally imposes strict laws on crypto service suppliers working inside the nation.
- The announcement comes after the European Union’s latest determination to advance anti-anonymity guidelines within the crypto house.
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Lithuania’s Finance Ministry has banned nameless wallets and imposed strict laws on crypto exchanges in an try and fight money-laundering, terrorist financing, and sanctions evasion. The ministry said it had made the transfer in anticipation of future European Union selections.
Lithuania Bans Self-Hosted Wallets
The Lithuanian authorities is seeking to go a brand new legislation to tightening crypto laws and outlaw nameless wallets.
In line with the Ministry of Finance, the federal government approved Wednesday amendments to the “Regulation on the Prevention of Cash Laundering and Terrorist Financing,” aiming to extend the transparency of the cryptocurrency sector whereas guaranteeing its “sustainable additional improvement.” The amendments will have to be authorised by the Seimas, Lithuania’s legislature, earlier than it’s handed into legislation.
Amongst different issues, the legislation seeks to ban the creation of “nameless accounts,” tighten know-your-customer (KYC) laws for crypto exchanges, and require managerial workers of Lithuanian-based exchanges to be everlasting residents of Lithuania. The Registrar of Authorized Entities can even make the names of crypto trade operators public.
These measures have been justified by the Finance Ministry as an effort to fight money-laundering, terrorist financing, sanctions evasion from Russia and Belarus, and reputational dangers for Lithuanian market individuals and the Lithuanian state.
Minister of Finance Gintarė Skaistė additionally said that the federal government was “taking proactive steps to strengthen regulation at nationwide degree in preparation for subsequent selections at [European Union] degree.”
The European Parliament just lately voted to advance anti-anonymity guidelines for the cryptocurrency business, which might make transactions between non-custodial wallets and crypto service suppliers far tougher. The laws has been criticized by many cryptocurrency advocates, together with Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong.
The variety of crypto firms has been quickly rising in Lithuania following a tightening of restrictions in its neighboring nation Estonia. Whereas there have been solely 8 crypto firms established in 2020, the Finance Ministry states that greater than 220 new entities have been created since then.
Disclosure: On the time of writing, the writer of this piece owned ETH and several other different cryptocurrencies.
