Crypto Frontline

We are beginning to see concrete regulation in play and the first country which shows big steps towards that is Australia. On April 3^rd 2018, the country announced a series of new rules that will be in play for cryptocurrency exchanges. The main objective is to prevent money laundering and most likely the rules will have a big contribution towards that goal.

Stricter ruler for cryptocurrency exchanges

The Australian Transaction Report and Analysis Center a.k.a. AUSTRAC had published on its website two days ago new rules for digital currency exchanges (DCE). The move is specifically intended to block loopholes in operations with cryptocurrencies the news from the actual website contains the following:

„From 3 April 2018 DCE businesses are required to meet AML/CTF obligations, including:

• adopting and maintaining an AML/CTF program to identify, mitigate and manage money laundering and terrorism financing risks
• identifying and verifying the identities of their customers
• reporting to AUSTRAC suspicious matters, and transactions involving physical currency of $10,000 or more
• keeping certain records for seven years.”

The entire material can be found here.

Also, the regulation will be imposed gradually, meaning all cryptocurrency exchanges will benefit from a six-month grace period and the AUSTRAC will be lenient with exchanges that do not manage to comply with the rules above.

With that being said, things are starting to move in terms of cryptocurrency regulation and now we are actually seeing some measures. We’ve talked in the past whether regulation could have a positive impact, and rules like the ones imposed by AUSTRAC are definitely going to do that.

Thus far, cryptocurrencies have not reacted to the news, but that’s normal since we’re talking just about Australia, not the whole world. There has been rising pressure on major cryptocurrencies as worries related to security have picked up and Google gave them a new hit with the latest measures.

We should see more measures like the ones above in more countries in the months ahead. Things are beginning to pick up steam and the pressure that is currently on cryptocurrencies might decrease with time.