> In a recent regulatory development, cryptocurrency payments of any size using unidentified self-custody crypto wallets are now illegal in the European Union (EU).
Payments are illegal (not wallets), and only if the sender/receivers are not identified (that is, you can ask for identification before transfers from those wallets are made).
It also has not entered into force, and I don't think it has completed approvals yet - as far as I understand the EU Council still also need to approve it, but I might be wrong about that part.
Offline storage of private keys is one thing. If you want offramp crypto for FIAT you send it too a centrale exchange which has a KYC process (so not anonymous) from the wallet. The mantra "not your keys, not your coins" is related to this.
Not really. What’s the point of a wallet if payments can’t be made to it? Effectively this forces a wallet to be 1) identified, or 2) be effectively lost.
Well payments can be made, just not anonymous. If you want to receive from those wallets, you have to identify the sender (i.e. ask for ID). There is no mention of a global database where you have to put the ID data, you just have to keep it on your own records.
I think it should be read "(Anonymous crypto wallets) now illegal in the EU", not "(Anonymous crypto) wallets now illegal in the EU". Ie, you are probably agreeing with the headline.
Either way; although I'm sure the EU won't be the last governmental to do this it undermines the pro-EU argument. The upside is they stand up to Apple and force them to use the right sort of charging cable ... and the downside for that is they expect to monitor literally every payment you can make; setting up for some really nasty authoritarianism. One of these things is substantially more consequential than the other.
so you ask for ID from the sender, but how do you verify that it is a valid/real ID?
If someone wishes to use a fake ID, they could. And then the receiver of the crypto would now be on the hook for the legal repercussions. This makes a chilling effect on this payment method.
> In a recent regulatory development, cryptocurrency payments of any size using unidentified self-custody crypto wallets are now illegal in the European Union (EU).
Payments are illegal (not wallets), and only if the sender/receivers are not identified (that is, you can ask for identification before transfers from those wallets are made).