Russian Financial Surveillance Agency to Monitor BTC-to-Fiat Transactions

e_abrams

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Dec 11, 2020
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Rosfinmonitoring, the financial surveillance agency in Russia, is planning on monitoring all bitcoin-to-fiat transactions happening. The news was revealed by German Neglyad, deputy head at the agency, this Wednesday. The announcement was made in the national parliament during a financial markets hearing.

Rosfinmonitoring, usually preoccupied with shutting down money laundering schemes and eliminating criminal financings systems, shifted its focus onto cryptocurrencies due to the availability of the asset as a means to finance terrorist groupings.

The surveillance agency is also planning to cooperate with Russia’s central bank. German Neglyad revealed that through this union there will be an introduction of a new guideline for distinguishing and hunting down suspicious crypto transactions.

Russia has defined Bitcoin and other cryptos as “property”, while also planning on introducing heavy regulations. In recent years, a number of bills were tried in parliament that will further enforce certain laws to the purchase and retail of cryptocurrencies. Most recently, an order by the Ministry of Labour prohibited civil servants from possessing digital currencies.

The interest in crypto that Rosfinmonitoring is showing has been going on for a while now. It has had its eye on the issues of crypto transactions and has been hard at work. Last August, for instance, it mentioned that it was developing a blockchain transaction tool, the ultimate goal of which is to track down the receiver of digital currency transactions.
Source
Personally, I think terrorism funding is just one, if very important, reason why they wish to monitor crypto transactions.