The US proposal would have been stricter than the global standard. Now it's gone.
FinCEN and the Federal Reserve are withdrawing their 2020 plan to cut the cross-border Travel Rule threshold from $3,000 to $250. The withdrawal takes effect tomorrow, and the $3,000 threshold stays for sharing customer and transaction details on covered transfers.
The proposal would also have formally extended the rules to convertible virtual currencies, so crypto transfers were squarely in scope. One detail stands out. A credit union group noted that the FATF's recommended threshold for cross-border wires is $1,000, and that other countries had adopted $1,000, which would have put $250 well below the international norm.
The agencies had a case. FinCEN data covering 2,000 suspicious activity reports from 2016 to 2019 referenced 1.29 million transmittals, and 99% of those began or ended in the US. The other side raised privacy and cost concerns, and Coin Center welcomed the withdrawal.
The agencies' stated reason was timing. FinCEN said the industry has evolved over the past five years and that more public input would help, so any similar future rule would need fresh comment.
A withdrawn proposal doesn't change existing law, and exchanges still have to follow current Travel Rule obligations. It's also the second crypto-related withdrawal in about a month, after the unhosted-wallet and mixing proposals in October.
The risk is that a future version returns in a different form. The supportive case is a clearer runway for small cross-border payments like remittances.
A rule that never took effect is gone. The debate about how much identity crypto payments should carry isn't.
$SOL #BTC Price Analysis# #Altcoin Season# $ETH
FinCEN and the Federal Reserve are withdrawing their 2020 plan to cut the cross-border Travel Rule threshold from $3,000 to $250. The withdrawal takes effect tomorrow, and the $3,000 threshold stays for sharing customer and transaction details on covered transfers.
The proposal would also have formally extended the rules to convertible virtual currencies, so crypto transfers were squarely in scope. One detail stands out. A credit union group noted that the FATF's recommended threshold for cross-border wires is $1,000, and that other countries had adopted $1,000, which would have put $250 well below the international norm.
The agencies had a case. FinCEN data covering 2,000 suspicious activity reports from 2016 to 2019 referenced 1.29 million transmittals, and 99% of those began or ended in the US. The other side raised privacy and cost concerns, and Coin Center welcomed the withdrawal.
The agencies' stated reason was timing. FinCEN said the industry has evolved over the past five years and that more public input would help, so any similar future rule would need fresh comment.
A withdrawn proposal doesn't change existing law, and exchanges still have to follow current Travel Rule obligations. It's also the second crypto-related withdrawal in about a month, after the unhosted-wallet and mixing proposals in October.
The risk is that a future version returns in a different form. The supportive case is a clearer runway for small cross-border payments like remittances.
A rule that never took effect is gone. The debate about how much identity crypto payments should carry isn't.
$SOL #BTC Price Analysis# #Altcoin Season# $ETH
