Two More Crypto Firms to Shut Down Over EU Money Laundering Regulations
Two more cryptocurrency firms – mining pool Simplecoin and bitcoin gaming platform Chopcoin – are shutting down because of the AMLD5 regulations of the European Union.
The 5th directive of the Anti-Money Laundering regulations comes into effect on January 10, 2020.
A notice on the Simplecoin website reads that the firm is closing down on the 1st of January because the new rules will require firms to identify their users and implement several anti-money laundering (AML) and know-your-customer (KYC) requirements. This is against the protection of users’ privacy.
According to Simplecoin,
‘When the laws come into effect, we would be forced to require you, the users, to identify yourselves for anti-money-laundering purposes. Mining should be available to anyone and we refuse to jeopardize our users’ privacy.’
Users of Simplecoin will have time until December 20 to withdraw funds and until December 21 to delete their account information. After this date, the wallets and entire platform will shut down.
Chopcoin is another crypto firm that is shutting down because of AMLD5 since it imposes more stringent reporting obligations for cryptocurrency firms. Under the AMLD5, the Financial Intelligence Units will be authorized to obtain the addresses and identities of all the owners and users of cryptocurrency.
Apart from Simplecoin and Chopcoin, other crypto firms are also being impacted by the regulations. Last week, a cryptocurrency payments startup, Bottle Pay, announced that it is shutting down on December 31 because of AMLD5 laws. According to Bottle Pay, the AMLD5 regulations will “alter the current user experience so radically, and so negatively, that we are not willing to force this onto our community.” Just three months prior, Bottle Pay raised $2 million in a seed funding round.
To maintain our integrity as service providers, and to protect the interests of our users, we have taken the painful decision to shut Bottle Pay down rather than become subject to the new #5AMLD regulations.
Please withdraw funds within the next 2 weeks.https://t.co/dZltbf7vjn— Bottle Pay (@bottlepay) December 13, 2019
