Several industry players have been quite vocal with respect to the proposal by the US Treasury Department and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network [FinCEN] which requires crypto operators to abide by regulations used to police conventional financial providers.
In the latest development, Jerry Brito, who happens to be the executive director of the non-profit crypto policy advocate group Coin Center, urged the community to comment against the agencies’ proposed crypto regulations, the deadline of which is January 4. In a series of tweets, Brito notified that Coin Center was working the Congress “to get some letters sent” to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin requesting an extension to the rushed comment period.
His tweet further read,
“Everyone in the cryptocurrency ecosystem should file a comment with FinCEN explaining how this rule would affect them and pointing out the unintended consequences. Filing a comment really does help.”
Months before his likely exit from office, Mnuchin dropped a regulatory proposal on the crypto industry. This left many players in the sector furious. The short period for commentary was considered a huge red flag by many proponents of the industry.
If passed, the new law would require the U.S.-based crypto platforms to check users’ identities and wallets on withdrawal of over $3,000 to a self-custodied wallet, or if they transfer over $10,000 to another platform.
Brito went on to explain that Mnuchin wants to get the proposed rule finalized before he leaves office on the 20th of January 2021. However, FinCEN is required by law to consider every comment before finalizing the proposal, Hence, if the agency gets “a lot of substantive comments filed”, they would not be able to finalize the rule before the said date.
FinCEN has to explore every comment filed concerning the proposal in question and work towards having a reasonable solution, hence, widespread participation by the crypto community could essentially delay the entire process and help the push for appropriate regulation by the next administration.